


A Better Claim

by TheLastGoodGoldfish



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit Sex, F/M, Post-Movie, TDTL spoilers, fake lawyering, minor MKAT spoilers, post-MKAT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-04-01
Packaged: 2018-03-17 08:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3523289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLastGoodGoldfish/pseuds/TheLastGoodGoldfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sacks doesn’t work up the nerve. There’s no hit. Keith isn’t injured. Veronica solves the Carrie Bishop case and returns to New York. (Movie AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Calling It

In a somewhat passive aggressive move against her father—though she isn’t exactly on point about why she should have feelings of aggression towards him, passive or otherwise—Veronica decides to spend her last night in California at dinner with Logan. Even though Veronica is booked on a 9 a.m. flight into JFK that she has _no_ intention of missing this time, Keith Mars eyes his daughter skeptically when she emerges from the guest room, ready to go: jeans, blouse, and the leather jacket that she is definitely not wearing because Logan seemed to like it, but just because it’s a little chilly, that’s all. She’s not really even that dressed up, but her dad seems to read into the whole thing, like he thinks her two day work trip turned ten-day-long vacation-slash-foray-into-P.I.-work will somehow turn permanent if the newly single Veronica (and her dad’s none too pleased about that either) breaks bread with Logan Echolls one more time.

Veronica is therefore pretty quiet as she sits on the couch and zips up her boots, and Keith looks on from the dining room.

“Logan returns to active duty pretty soon, huh?”

She doesn’t correct the terminology, because then he’d know she’d researched it, but confirms: “Next week.”

So even if she stayed, it’s not like she would see Logan. Not that she’s staying. Her dad has made it pretty clear he wants to get her the hell out of Dodge.

 _But Weevil_ —

—is her father’s client, and her father, the _actual P.I.,_ will figure it out.

Veronica has also set up a few job interviews for herself back in New York, and after the Truman-Mann fiasco, she’s pretty sure she can't afford to miss them.

“Bet he’s feeling pretty good right about now,” Keith goes on, still talking about Logan, because he just doesn’t know when to quit. Veronica tugs at the zipper on her second boot just as she hears a car pull up outside.

“Well, his ex-girlfriend died a few weeks ago and her shitty friends framed him for it, so I guess ‘good’ isn’t the right word.” Veronica pops up from the couch. “But Lamb looked pretty silly on TMZ, and HLN is running non-stop coverage of the case against Gia and Stu, so I guess he’s not feeling _terrible_.”

Keith frowns. “Which reminds me—you ever get my bugs back? Those guys ain’t cheap, daughter of mine.”

“Returned to the safe, as promised,” Veronica replies. She slings her purse over her shoulder and heads for the door.

“Of course, with your big lawyer paychecks,” Keith adds, “I’ll be expecting new nifty gadgets for my birthday anyway.”

“So I’ll cancel the Padres box seats, got it.” Veronica reaches the front door, and just because she knows it’ll irk him, she chirps, “Don’t wait up!” before slipping out.

Logan’s halfway up the walkway and seems a little surprised to see Veronica already emerging.

“Once you turn twenty-one, it’s no longer required that you make nice with the old man before taking out his daughter,” Veronica tells him, falling into step with him and fluttering her eyelashes, like the idea of this being a date is a joke. Like she’s not seriously, if surreptitiously, taking him in—Logan Echolls in full force tonight, black button-up, jeans, delectably built like a fucking... well, like a fucking fighter pilot, probably. _God_.

“I just figured he’d want to catch up with me,” Logan bats back. He opens the passenger side door of the Beemer for her, but doesn’t linger while she climbs in. “We were always so close.”

Logan seems to be in a better mood today. He’s been lighter, of course, since Gia Goodman confessed, since Stu Cobbler’s been charged with Carrie’s murder after about fifteen minutes of real detective work from the Balboa County Sheriff’s department and a search warrant collected more than enough evidence for the whole thing. Logan looked _years_ younger when the footage of Dan Lamb hit the news, but the other stuff—the sheriff’s department leaking the picture of Carrie and Co. dumping Susan Knight’s body, the constant harassment from the paparazzi, the press needling him day and night for some kind of statement now that he’s a grief-stricken boyfriend, rather than a murder suspect... it’s wearing Logan out, she can tell, and she’s glad to see the slight hop in his step when he drops off the curb and moseys around the front of the car to the driver’s side.

“Where are we going?” Veronica wants to know, as Logan buckles up and fishes the car keys out of his pocket.

“My only specification is nowhere too...” He can’t think of an adjective, and offers instead, by way of explanation: “Certain shades of limelight, yada yada yada.”

“Mexican food sound good to you, Miss Golightly?” Veronica asks. “I can’t stand what passes for it in New York. _Villa Corona_ , maybe?”

“Closed like six years ago,” Logan tells her, and of all things, that’s like a slap across the face. Funny, because they only had maybe six months together— _together_ together, her and Logan, back in their single shared year at Hearst, but they had places, and routines, and a million things that were _theirs_. But that was almost ten years ago, and it makes her so... so unspeakably sad. Probably Logan’s associations with Neptune now that he doesn’t have a permanent residence here are mostly Carrie-related. “But there’s a place down on Pittsburgh that’s pretty good,” Logan goes on. “Same vibe.”

Veronica smiles and nods.

 _Taqueria Rosita_ is quiet and dark. The walls are off-white stucco and each is marked by a large, canvas painting of a flower. Beaded curtains hang in the arch-doors and yellow light mixes with the intimate shadows—it's got too much atmosphere, Veronica thinks. For about a second, she's a little resentful that Logan thinks this place has the "same vibe" as her beloved _Villa_ , but then the waitress shows up, her California Spanglish cutting through the calm of the dining room as she hollers a complaint to "Bernardo" in the kitchen. She's probably sixty, wearing a faded black Aerosmith t-shirt, and she shoots a salesman's smile to Logan and Veronica as she grabs menus from the hostess's stand. Veronica redacts her resentment and beams at her not-date. They’re seated immediately at a round, dark wooden table that has been stuffed, unsuitably, in a corner. The only other patrons in the place are a group of teenagers blowing spit balls at each other with their straws and two older men speaking in slow, quiet Spanish.

“Excited to be going back?” Logan asks, and the answer is _no_ , but Veronica smiles and nods again. His eyebrows shoot up, like he’s surprised—not that she’s excited to be going back, she thinks, but that she’s lying about it. Veronica sighs.

“I’ve got the bar, and more job interviews, since the other one fell through...” She shrugs. “And apartment hunting, probably too, so it’ll be a while before I’m—settled.” _Happy_ is what she means, but that would be another lie, and Logan keeps looking like he can see through those, so what’s the point? “What about you?” she redirects. “Excited to be—wherever it is you’re going?”

“Glad to be flying again.” Logan fidgets less these days, Veronica has noticed with mixed feelings, but he’s toying with the end of the cloth napkin in front of him, though he’s still maintaining eye contact. “And it’s good to be back with the squad just—in general. After everything.”

In the last four days since she closed the case, Veronica has spent a fair amount of time with Logan—meals, coffee, a quick meet-up to check in after the charges were dropped, which turned into _wine and four hours of conversation_ in Dick’s living room—and in all that time, she hasn’t asked why he joined the Navy. It’s odd, because the fact of it bewildered her when she first heard, what seems like a lifetime ago, but since she’s come back, she doesn’t think she needs to ask. It seems strangely obvious, Logan in the Navy. It _fits_ , even as it blows her mind a little.

Their beers arrive, and the waitress takes their orders, and when she leaves, Logan drops the pretense with: “So why aren’t you glad to be going back to New York?” Which pisses her off, because _who does he think he is_ , and absolutely thrills her at the same time, because he _knows_. He still knows. How does he still know? How does he still remember?

“I was hoping to stick around for a little while longer,” she says. “There’s the thing with Weevil...” Logan’s eyebrows inch upward again, but Veronica shrugs; “Wish I could help out.” She peels the label on her beer. “But it’s time. To go back.”

“Neptune’s a mess,” says Logan politically, and it could be a warning— _get out while you can_ —so Veronica can’t figure out why it sounds like an invitation. Or maybe a challenge.

“Always has been,” she agrees, nice and non-committal.

In the last four days, Logan hasn’t asked about her decision to leave nine years ago, either. He said “Bygones” and left it that, and Veronica is in turns grateful that she doesn’t have to explain and desperate to do so. But one thing is clear: he doesn’t blame her for leaving. Which is bizarre, because Veronica has blamed herself for it, on and off, for years. She’s vacillated between _I had to, it was the right decision, someone would’ve ended up dead if I hadn’t,_ and _the villain is the one that splits_ , and even when, in her rational mind, she sticks to the former, sometimes (like now) she wonders.

She knows—she _knows_ —that she beat Neptune. She got out. She can safely declare victory over this hellhole of excess and corruption. A Neptune High success story. But the feeling that accompanies this knowledge doesn’t resemble vindication, not at all, and a melancholy tone sits over their meal, even as Logan coaxes laughter from her with dramatically gesticulated stories of his training, and Veronica comically describes the horrors of her first week in New York.

Logan pays for dinner, and she permits it with a promise to get dessert. It’s not a stalling tactic to prolong the evening. She really just wants ice cream.

“Y’know, when one person risks hide and hair to get another off murder charges,” Logan quips, as they leave the restaurant, “it’s customary for the risker to accept payment in enchiladas without complaint. Especially when she refuses to accept monetary compensation.”

“They teach you that in Navy School?” asks Veronica.

“Nah, I took a weekend seminar at the community center. I can knit, too. Same seminar, would you believe it?”

Veronica laughs and folds her arms against the chill, and if her shoulder occasionally bumps against Logan’s arm as they walk down the street, it’s only because she’s two beers in.

Logan has been less openly flirtatious since he found out about Piz, which is fair enough, even though he knows that they’ve split up now ( _Piz sticking around in Neptune, too?_ No, he went back to New York. And we... we’re not... anymore...). Veronica tries not to examine what it means that her love life didn’t seem relevant when she was _in_ a relationship, but it was like, the third thing she mentioned once she was _out_ of the relationship.

Not that her lack of relationship is going to be relevant either. How would that even go? How would she even begin to broach that subject? _Hey, I know I’m moving across the country and you’re shipping out across the world, but wanna make out?_

Maturity, age, and a sense of purpose look good on Logan, and it hasn’t escaped her notice that he’s got all that, _plus_ the qualities that drove her crazy (in all senses) about _her Logan_ all those years ago—an impulsively (for lack of a better word) noble streak, quick, biting sense of humor, and the ability to see straight through her... to name just three examples. But she doesn’t know how to get started. Since leaving for Stanford, she’s had so much practice in self-denial, denial of the impulses she’d been so sure would destroy her, that she’s not really sure how to go about pursuing something she wants. _Really_ wants, not just thinks she’s supposed to want—things that look good on résumés and will pay off student loans.

By now, she’s not even denying that she wants Logan. Not to herself, anyway. There’s no point, because nine years worth of missing this boy have been resurrected inside of her and combined with all the future months of missing him (years? When will she see him again? She’s going to see him again, has to see him again), so that even though he’s standing right next to her, quietly mocking the silly names for ice cream flavors on the menu they’re sharing, making her laugh and buzz with the tickling of his warm breath on her ear, she’s aching from his former-and-future absence.

Which isn’t even taking into account the fact that Logan-at-age-eighteen is still probably the best lay she’s had, so God only knows what the twenty-eight-year-old model is capable of.

The inexplicable pull between them is still there, the wit-based chemistry, the importance of their shared history (even with the nearly decade-long gap)—there’s no reason to think the sex wouldn’t still be just...

They’re walking along the pier, she’s watching his hands too closely when he holds his paper ice cream cup, and Veronica swallows an extra-large scoop of mint chocolate chip in an attempt to manufacture a brain freeze and stop herself from doing something truly stupid—if incredibly satisfying—like kiss him or drag him to the nearest hotel. Which, on this side of town, would probably be the Camelot.

 _In twelve hours, you’re going to be on a plane to New York_ , she reminds herself.

“Where do you live?” she asks abruptly after about three seconds of silence. She elaborates: “When you’re not sleeping on Dick’s fold-out.”

“Had a place in San Diego, but I gave it up in November. I knew I’d be leaving soon and I didn’t want to be there another year.” Probably it reminded him of Carrie; they split up about then, she thinks. Veronica’s learning his cues, again—lots of them she’s never forgotten, but there are new ones. He used to duck his head, look at the ground, when he _really_ talked about Lilly; with Carrie, his new dead love, he’s got a whole series of different tells. He looks wistful and stares off in another direction, like he’s trying to remember something from a strange dream. Something he can't make sense of, most of the time; sometimes, something sweet.

She wonders if he has a _Veronica_ look, one for conversations about _her_ , but she supposes that, short of planting cameras, there isn’t much chance of finding out.

(Which is a totally insane thought to have.)

She does know, though, that Logan has a way of looking _at_ her that doesn’t quite match up with how he looks at anyone else. She remembers (or, she remembers remembering) how he once upon a time looked at Lilly, but even that was—same intensity, different tone. _Her Logan_ is different from _Lilly’s Logan_. Or, _was_ different.

Because, of course, _her Logan_ is as much a thing of the past as Lilly’s Logan. Now he’s... not Carrie’s Logan... the U.S. Government’s Logan? No, maybe he’s no one’s now. Maybe he’s finally accepted his not belonging to or with anyone. _She_ did: a long time ago—before Piz, before New York, before Stanford, too. When she was a vengeful, angry nineteen year old, she decided that she couldn’t have the all-consuming love, the relationship that wanted to see and touch and know every single bit of her, and she knows that since that decision, and then in her flight from Neptune, she’s been safe. Better, too, probably. She has to go back soon, to New York, and this feeling that she could stay is just insanity. Temporary insanity.

“What about all your stuff?” Veronica asks. “Furniture? Minor appliances? Your comic book collection?”

“They’re _graphic novels_ , Veronica,” he says seriously, and then they both break out in grins. “Storage,” he says.

“I bet you have a unit just for your puka shells.”

Logan genuinely cracks up at that; he nearly chokes on his ice cream and consequently takes a few seconds to reply: “I’ll break ‘em out next time you’re in town.”

Veronica’s ridiculously full, but they decide to get a drink. She’s not putting anything off, really, it’s just that he owes her a real drink since last time was mostly a Ruby Jetson showcase.

“That’s such _bullshit_ ,” he laughs, interrupting the story she’s telling while the ice melts in what’s left of her whiskey sour. They’re not seated at the bar tonight, but at a high table against the brick wall of Merrick’s—a place that used to be a Hearst hang out but has matured into a nice, cozy pub, occupied mostly by young professionals and grad students. There’s a band, but they’re not half bad and they’re not distracting, and no one bothers Logan or Veronica at their table.

“It’s not bullshit!” Veronica protests, also laughing. “You have _always_ remembered this story wrong...”

“I have _not_! You are the one who refuses to acknowledge the sheer _mastery..._ ”

“Mastery!”

“ _Mastery_ of my heroic take-down of Sonny the Snake...”

“That’s not his name!”

“Well it’s better than whatever boring name he actually had, Bill, Frank, whatever... so when _I_ tell the story...”

“You tell this story?”

“As a demonstration of my strength and dexterity? Absolutely.”

“Oh, now I’m curious. How _do_ you remember the _Case of the_ _Bail Jumper in the Suburbs_?”

“Okay, well, first of all, in my version, he’s a hitman, and he's in a seedy drug haven in Los Angeles...”

“Of _course_...”

“...And I'm on a stake out with this pesky blonde I’d recently reconnected with, summer after high school...”

“So far so good...”

“Naturally, she wanted to make out and was all over me, but _I_ was just trying to focus on the case...”

“De-lu-sion-al,” she draws out every syllable, but Logan carries on.

“So we’re both a _tiny_ bit distracted, when Pesky Blonde...”

“I think that’s going on my gravestone...”

“...Spots a guy in a trench coat, _obviously_ packing heat...”            

“Oh, you could see his gun from the car?”

“He had a gun carrying _aura_ about him? Anyway, he’s got a weapon, and he’s sneaking up the back porch of his ex-wife’s dark, shady apartment, notorious for its illicit activities...”

“Four bedroom, ranch house just outside the oh-nine, but go on...”

“...And Pesky Blonde thinks, _oh, this is my guy,_ hops off my lap without warning and jumps out of my very cool car...”

“ _Yellow gas guzzling monstrosity!_ ”

“...And instead of calling in her father, as she’d promised, decides to abandon her big strong boyfriend in the car and pursue the Lou Ferrigno-shaped delinquent skulking through the shadows all by her lonesome...”       

“He was a tiny, rat-faced accountant and you know it!”

“Hey, hey, hey...” Logan holds up his hands defensively, “the _actual_ bail-jumper was a tiny, rat-faced accountant. The guy _you thought_ was the bail jumper was actually his much taller, must beefier, Smith-and-Wesson-toting older brother, while the little guy waited in the car...”

“So you admit that _I_ was the one who took out the big guy?” Veronica says, _gotcha_ smirk in place.

“I admit that you sent fifty thousand volts through his chest while _I_ spotted little bro trying to take off in the Caddy.” He points at her: “Brawn,” and at himself, “ _Brain.”_

Veronica throws her head back in laughter, “Bull _shit!_ ” And Logan joins her.

“Why won’t you let me have this one, Mars? You know how many stories I get to be the hero of?” He holds up four fingers and mouths the number. “And full discolsure, one of those I stole from a guy in my squad.”

Veronica’s laughter fades. “I think I might remember a few heroic moments for you,” she says, and she's glad that she admits it— _the look on Logan's face, then_ —even if she wouldn't have done it sober. There’s a moment, then Logan lightens the whole thing, with:

“When I punched that Peter DeLuise wanna-be at the Camelot? And you threw yourself into my arms? Yeah, I remember...”

“You have a _terrible_ memory, Logan...”

“...Although when I retell _that_ story, his motives are much more nefarious. He’s kidnapping you to keep you silent on his plot to blow up Neptune High...”

“So more _Heathers_ than _Jump Street_?”

“Well, he _was_ thwarted by a Veronica.”

“We’re a tenacious bunch.”

Logan smirks, and Veronica makes eye contact with a waitress to order another drink. It’s late. She has to be up at the crack of dawn to go to the airport. _Who cares._

Later than she intended and entirely soon, Logan drives her home. He parks on her dad’s curb and gets out with her, walking her toward the door. They climb the steps, and Veronica is overcome by a feeling of dread, deep and churning in her stomach. _Almost over._ They stop just before the _Welcome_ mat and stand in the porch light, turned towards each other. They sort of stare for a few seconds; Logan’s hands are in his pockets, Veronica’s arms are folded, her shoulders hunched, like she’s cold, which she’s not.

Logan looks at her—fondly, she thinks. Not like he’s waiting for anything in particular. He’s so _different_ and so _familiar,_ it makes her ache; curiosity and nostalgia all mixed up into a painfully strong sense of longing. No, not ache. Burn.

“I’m...” she begins to say, though she doesn’t know where she’s headed with the sentence; _I’m not disappearing again; I’m going to come back,_ maybe. She believes this to be true. “I’m going to call you,” she tests it out.

The surprise on Logan’s face registers, if subtly. He looks pleased though. “Better make it e-mail. I don’t get a lot of bars on the tin cans they send us out on.”

_Spanning years continents lives ruined—_

She breathes it in and nods, smiling.  _I miss you_. _In all tenses._

Another beat, then Logan cuts the silence. “Have a good trip, Veronica.”

“You too,” she shoots back.

“Thank-you. Again. For...” He waves, _everything_.

Veronica nods, but she’s staring at his lips, and it’s no fucking good. He doesn’t move to leave yet, and Veronica steps up to him. She thinks she’s going to kiss him on the cheek, really believes it, too, right until her lips meet his and she knows better.

He stills for a moment, just a moment, but long enough for Veronica to note the pleasure of having taken him by surprise—it’s a thrill all of its own, and then he responds, and as far thrills go, the first doesn’t even rank.

He tastes fucking _wonderful_ , even better when his fingers thread through her hair and pull her in deeper, when he shifts, changes angles, like he has to try every bit of her, _thank God._ His tongue pushing against and sliding with hers, hot, a little rough—fantastic. _D_ _on’t go, don’t stop_ , she thinks irrationally, _please don’t leave, please don’t let me leave_ , and she pulls his neck down, trying to get closer, even though all of her is pressed up against him. Her fingers are still curled around and clutching the back of his shirt when, reluctantly, they pull apart. She gives herself one last lingering tug against his bottom lip, and then drops to the flats of her feet again. She keeps her eyes shut and counts silently to five. It's a farewell gift to herself, five more seconds before she has to say _goodbye_. There's a reason she never tried nine years ago.

By the time she opens her eyes, Logan already has as well. Maybe he never closed them.

His mouth curves up on one side. Veronica knows she’s mirroring the expression. Her arms finally drop to her sides, and Logan's thumb brushes across her cheekbone one more time before he releases her.

“Take care of yourself, Logan,” she whispers.

She wishes he’d ask her to stay. Then, maybe she could come up with some reasons _not_ to.

“Don’t be a stranger, Veronica,” he says.

-

Veronica sleeps badly that night. She wakes at a quarter to six without much difficulty, showers, dries and straightens her hair, and decides against coffee, because she thinks she’d rather sleep through her flight.

* * *

 

Things with Piz go—at any rate, they go.

Veronica lets herself into their apartment the evening of her return in order to collect some clothes and personal items before heading to the hotel room she’s already booked for herself. She finds Piz in the kitchen, preparing himself a turkey-and-cranberry sandwich for his dinner, but he nearly drops the baguette onto his plate when Veronica enters the room. His eyes are wide, as though he wasn't expecting her. She doesn’t see why. She sent him her itinerary, after all.

“I didn’t actually think you’d come back,” he says. Veronica blinks.

If she were being honest, she’d let him off the hook, say _me neither._ Instead she replies: “You know why I went out there,” and props her suitcase against the wall. “It was never going to be a permanent thing.”

So they end up sitting down in the small living room to “talk.” Piz offers to make her a sandwich, but she declines.

“I know it was stupid,” he tells her. “I’m sorry about—that phone call.”

“Me too,” she says a bit coolly, but then she feels a sting of guilt for being unnecessarily difficult with Piz. She’s pretty sure she’s in the wrong here. “I’m sorry, too,” she amends, like that’s what she meant all along.

“I just—my parents were here, and I know that’s... I just had this full-on flashback, you know?”

“Flashback?”

“To college, y’know. I was—I thought you wouldn’t want to leave.” Which doesn’t even make sense. In college, she _did_ leave. That's the whole point, dammit.

“It wasn’t a vacation, Piz. They framed him for _murder,_ I couldn’t just let it go. I—and there was so much going on. Weevil...” Off Piz’s blank look, she reminds him: “Bald guy, tattoos, motorcycle gang...?” She tries to place Weevil in context in her mind to line him up with Piz-in-Neptune: “He worked as a janitor at Hearst when we were there? He was in that mess at the reunion...” Recollection finally dawns on Piz, and they nod in sync. “He got shot last week, and my dad’s on the case. It was just a huge mess, I can’t even explain...”

“I get it,” says Piz gently. “I’m sorry. I know—I get it, loyalty, I do, I don’t know why I thought that would mean you’d want to stay in a place like that. I just...”

“Did.”

He looks down. “Yep. I’m sorry.”

Veronica struggles to meet him halfway: “Me too. I should’ve...” _What, Veronica?_ She knows she’s in the wrong, she just isn’t sure why. She didn’t do anything she wouldn’t do again. _Right_? “I should’ve been there for you, too. You’re—you were my boyfriend, I should’ve—I should’ve been better.”

Piz frowns, but then the corners of his mouth twitch; sometimes, Piz is really adorable. “I don’t know how I feel about that past tense.”

Veronica feels a rush of affection for this man, just then. Piz is so good for her. Piz gets it. All is forgiven, no grudges, no drama, no past butting in to mess with them when things get complicated—no things getting complicated at all, anyway. Just sweetness.

“Yeah?” Their smiles are shy. This could work. This—she could get it all back, right now. Her life. Her control.

“I don’t—I don’t just want to throw everything away, Veronica.”

“I—me neither.”

They’re still, awkward for a moment. Piz looks at her like she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, and for a moment, Veronica basks in it. She enjoys the warmth, the simplicity, of his love for her. In the past week, Veronica has been well aware of what it's like to  _feel nineteen_ again; Logan did that. Not always, but sometimes. Piz doesn't make her feel nineteen, though; when he's staring at her like this, starry eyed and trusting, Veronica doesn't feel young, but she wants to be young. Not young as she really was, but as she ought to have been. She wants a different reality--a reality of smiles and fun and adolescent silliness. Nineteen, as a shampoo commercial. 

But then, there’s a familiar, sour aftertaste. A twinge of well-worn guilt. The trip to Neptune didn’t turn permanent, but it still happened. Piz felt what he felt once, and he wasn’t—she can admit it, even here, in their cute little apartment, surrounded by the trimmings of their nearly year-long relationship—he wasn’t completely wrong. And if they’re going to do this again, she has to shoot for honesty. She _wants_ to be truthful with him. She lowers her gaze, because this is—this is _hard_ for her: “I wanted to,” she begins without context, and Piz scoots closer on the couch; the toes of his shoes inch into Veronica’s periphery. “I wanted to stay,” she says. “In Neptune. I—I miss it. I miss investigating.” She looks up, and Piz’s brow is furrowed.

Cautious, courteous, he’s trying to understand. “I get it,” he says again. “I know the feeling.”

“You do?”

“Sure—I mean, sure, I still have the occasional rock-star fantasy. But I go to Bonnaroo and get it out of my system. I don’t drop everything and start a band.” He laughs; it’s funny to him. "I don't quit my job and follow Glass Animals on tour!"

It's not funny to Veronica.

Actually, it’s the moment that she knows it’s all over with Piz. Her hand, which he takes, is shaking.

“ _Rock star fantasy?”_ she echoes and meets his eye. “I got Logan off _murder charges.”_

Piz says something, then, something apologetically back-tracking, but it is lost on her. It is spoken and forgotten before Veronica can be bothered to translate. She’s beyond pissed.

In a week, she’ll know that the anger is unfair. She’ll know that it isn’t Piz’s fault that he believed her all this time. But just now, as the conversation grows more heated, as barbs are exchanged, as everything hits peak passion somewhere in the zone of _really irritated, slightly elevated tones_ (which is twice as bad as any fight she’s ever had with Piz) and he throws out the phrase _Grow up_ , she can’t find it in her heart to forgive him for believing her lie. He believed that she had changed—that her past was fully _in the past_ , a matter of youthful naivete. Immature. Irresponsible. Over. She can’t justify her anger at him for believing her, but she’s angry nonetheless.

She packs another suitcase and returns at an agreed-upon later date for the rest of her stuff.

In a week, when she’s apartment hunting from a friend’s couch, she’s a little sorry for the way things ended, but there’s a sense of inevitability about it. She had the same feeling the last time, when Piz broke up with her on the phone. _Calling it like it is_.

Maybe if she'd never gone back to Neptune, it would have been fine. She could've gone on forever like this, maybe, except for that one too-good hit of... _whatever_ , and suddenly it's not enough to be looked at and loved. Not if no one sees her. Since Neptune, she knows that she's tired, so fucking tired, of not being seen for what she is, and then she wonders if it isn't all right to be  _a little_ angry with Piz. 

There’s relief, too, and freedom. With the end of the relationship, Veronica hangs up the truthfully exhausting mantle of _Cool Girlfriend_ and enjoys the brief respite, just before she takes on the role of Veronica Mars: Big City Lawyer.

This'll be good, she thinks. This is what she wanted all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this will be a four part story about what might have been and mercifully wasn't. How Veronica finds her detour-ific long way home, sans attempts on her father's life.


	2. Cookie-Wise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica Mars: Big City Lawyer

New York, April 2016

Preston, Farris & Hewitt is a bigger firm than Truman-Mann, less boutique-y and more explicitly corporate. They took on more associates in this season’s rounds of interviews, and they’ll let more go by the time summer rolls around, but Veronica isn’t too concerned about her employment status. One of the junior partners has taken a special liking to her, and since she has pretty much _no_ life these days, the sixty-five hour work week comes naturally to her. She spends a good amount of time with one of the other new associates—a woman named Mariah, and though Veronica isn’t entirely sure that her coworker-and-pseudo-friend Mariah exactly _likes_ her, Mariah isn’t trying to get into her pants, which puts her ahead of a strong ninety-eight percent of her male peers. Fortunately, the competitive angle to their relationship (inevitable, in this environment) is unsubtle enough that Veronica doesn’t feel threatened by it. She hopes that Mariah won’t be one of those let go by the time summer rolls around, and she thinks Mariah probably feels the same about her, which is about as close as any of the junior associates at a place like Preston, Farris & Hewitt are likely to be.

She keeps up with two of her law school friends, Andrea and Stewart, mostly by text, but with some consistency. Most of her other New York friends—okay, acquaintances, if she’s being honest—prior to her trip to Neptune were probably more of Piz’s friends, and after the final blow-out there, Veronica figures those bridges are best left burned.

Most of the time, she doesn’t regret the break up and is too busy to miss the trappings of a relationship. Her new apartment is a bougie, faux-industrial, completely overpriced SoHo loft that her coworker-and-pseudo-friend Mariah envies. Veronica works all day, comes home and works some more. Weekends, too, at least Saturday. She considers getting a dog, or maybe a cat. She was always more of a dog person, of course, but dogs are higher maintenance and she doesn’t know if she can commit to one when she’s never home. Her loft is well-decorated, but she’s been here almost two months and there are boxes she hasn’t unpacked yet, and she doesn’t know why. It’s uncharacteristic.

It’s ten o’clock one night in April when Veronica decides to rearrange the furniture in the sitting area. There’s a low wall that hits just below her shoulder and divides this part of the loft from the dining area, and she thinks the television would be better suited there, oriented away from the kitchen. Then the long couch could go along the wall, the shorter one, the loveseat, perpendicular to it at an _L_... no, maybe at a wider angle, oh, that’s interesting, she could try that, and then the space might not look so... so box-y...

She moves about half the furniture and then rewards herself with a glass of wine. She ends up pulling out her laptop and smiles broadly at the new e-mail at the top of her inbox.

> _Re: Re: Re: Ground Control to Major Tom_
> 
> _Okay, the_ re’s _are getting a little ridiculous on that subject line, Mars. Time for a new topic. Applicable branch and rank would be appreciated. Snappy, relevant... points will be deducted for any film references that can be linked to Tom Cruise._

Veronica is just slightly disappointed that Logan went with short-and-quippy today. She looks forward to his e-mails more than she would like to admit, and some of them are considerably longer, glimpses into his life on the ship or any of the time in the last nine years. But even if she replies right this instant, she won’t get a response till tomorrow at the earliest.

She starts a new e-mail thread and clicks into the subject line, a stupid, lip-biting smile on her face while she considers her options. Coming up blank for the time being, she clicks into the main body text box and begins.

> _Big talk from a guy who hasn’t authored a subject-line since that, let’s face it, weak,_ Primal Fear _jab about a month ago._

Veronica hesitates, and then goes for the plunge:

> _Guess, and I mean dig deep for this one, but just_ guess _who my dad is working for these days. You know how he landed that big missing persons case for Petra Landros and the county? Long story, but it all ended up with Dad trying to help find the missing stepdaughter of... wait for it... my mom._
> 
> _Yep, Lianne Mars got herself remarried, looks like, and to a real catch. The guy made off with a bunch of ransom money meant to go to help his kidnapped daughter (I know, only in Neptune), and Lamb, in his infinite wisdom, is trying to say that Mom..._

Veronica backspaces and retypes it twice, before deciding on:

> _...Lianne is in on it, so Dad’s helping her track down her new hubby._
> 
> _She’s sober these days. Dad says she looks good. I will admit to googling her once or twice, and I agree. She’s gotten her life together finally, and it sucks that this is all going down now._

Veronica wonders if Logan will read what she doesn’t write, though. She wonders if he’ll guess that some part of her, not so small and definitely not pretty, reacted to the news of her mother’s abandonment with: _well now she knows how it feels_.

She doesn’t type it out, though. Probably, she doesn’t need to _._ Instead, she keeps it light and carries on:

> _I’m rearranging all the furniture in my apartment at the moment, mostly because it looks like so much fun in the movies. But, much like studying, cleaning, exercising, painting, or cooking, redecorating is so much better in a montage. The movies lie, Lieutenant. They lie._
> 
> _-V_

Veronica sits back on her couch and looks around the half-organized room with a complete lack of interest. She misses Logan. She misses her dad. She wishes she were in Neptune now, helping him work through her mom’s bullshit. She misses Mac and Wallace, who she talks to more than she talks to any of her friends in New York.

She misses Logan. She wishes they’d kissed a little more when she was in Neptune.

* * *

In the summer, Veronica takes one of the junior partner’s cast-off _pro bono_ cases and kills it. Opposing counsel is trying to settle so fast, Veronica’s almost disappointed that court proceedings won’t continue for a _little_ longer, just because she could use the experience. But the swift victory does wonders for her cred in the office, and it dulls the pain of her coworker-and-pseudo-friend, Mariah’s recent dismissal. Her own three month probationary period will be up in a month, and the case gives her the reputation as the most promising of this year’s new associates, which more or less guarantees that she’ll be kept on... so long as she doesn’t screw anything up too badly.

“Most of the work was done by the time I took the case,” she tells her dad over the phone.

“My daughter, the closer,” he sighs contentedly, and Veronica can’t help but smile at that. Her only ally in the office may be gone, but her dad’s pride could probably sustain her for years at Preston, Farris. Probably. The professional respect she’s won from her coworkers doesn’t hurt either.

With Mariah gone, Veronica finds herself spending most of her time with two other junior associates, who have both been at the firm for almost a year. The three of them—Veronica, Amrit Kundra, and Cole Grayson—are stuck doing research for Max Farris (“Yes, _that_ Farris,” Veronica tells her awestruck father), but at least it gets them a little office space of their own. No longer in one large room with a dozen other coworkers, they share a reasonably sized office with three desks, a brown leather couch, and a cappuccino machine. They even have an intern to boss around: a first year Columbia student named Patty, whose uncle works on the fifteenth floor.

Amrit is thirty-two, married, and very professional. Veronica doesn’t mind him: she doesn’t have the _time_ to mind him, when she’s so busy loathing Grayson.

Cole Grayson is pretty typical fare at Preston, Farris & Hewitt: twenty-nine, two-time Ivy Leaguer (Yale, then Princeton) –describes himself as “self-made” because his dad only went to Wesleyan. He’s tall and fit, blond, blue-eyed, and though he’s always at least relatively professional with her, Veronica knows (from Patty) that he makes suggestive-to-the-point-of-offensive remarks about the extra-professional things he’d like to do with Veronica. Pretending she doesn’t know this kind of thing is a form of slow torture for her.

Like him or not, however, Veronica soon realizes that she will be spending a great deal of time with Grayson—especially when the Com-Rite case falls, gracelessly, into their laps.

* * *

July 2016 

Martha Vallarta is an unpleasant woman.

“She’s an unholy bitch,” Grayson says, and maybe he’s right or maybe he’s wrong but it doesn’t really matter, as Veronica points out. It’s not their job to hate her. It’s not their job to feel anything about her. It’s only their job to prove that she was _not_ a victim of gender discrimination and sexual harassment during her time as Junior Vice President of the New York offices of Com-Rite Insurance.

“Sure,” Grayson replies. “But it’ll be way fucking easier to get this shit thrown out when the judge sees what an unholy bitch she is. She wasn’t passed over for promotions and bonuses because she’s a chick. She was passed over because she’s a whiny bitch who fucked her way to the top.”

Veronica meets her, or rather sees and hears her, at the Examination Before Trial, at which time Martha Vallarta is rude to the interns, complains about the outrageously expensive espresso brought to her, and refers to the frumpily dressed (and very pregnant) court reporter as “Wal-Mart.” So maybe Martha Vallarta is not _the nicest_.

Between salary, bonuses, and additional emotional distress, Vallarta and her lawyers are going for millions, and there are four junior associates working with Farris—the savviest of the partners when it comes to discrimination cases. Twenty years ago, he won huge settlements for his clients in discrimination suits against Coca-Cola, the City of Chicago, and, most notoriously, the Teamsters. Vallarta’s lawyer is a woman who worked with Farris in the last of these, and Farris has all but said that this is a grudge match for him. They’re making sure Martha Vallarta walks away with nothing.

“She’s claiming she was pressured into an intimate personal relationship with the Senior VP, Doug Gainsborough. She says he promised her a promotion when _he_ was promoted,” Curtis Alan, the human resources director for Com-Rite New York, informs a conference room full of Preston, Farris  & Hewitt lawyers, Veronica included. “But she can’t prove that any romantic or...” he fumbles, and that’s what Veronica notices, “ _physical_ relationship ever existed between them.”

“Did it?” asks Farris.

“Did what?”

“Was she sleeping with someone at Com-Rite?”

“No, of course not.”

“She had no romantic relationships with _any_ of her coworkers? Consensual ones?”

“No. Gainsborough will swear to it, and there’s been strict oversight of her for years.”

“Why?” Veronica asks. She feels the other first years' eyes on her, and maybe she spoke out of turn, but Farris continues to watch Mr. Alan, waiting for the answer, so Veronica knows that she asked the right question. “Why Vallarta in particular?”

Alan hesitates. “Martha’s uncle was a founding partner. He’s still on the board. There were concerns of nepotism when she was first hired. Com-Rite has a history...”

“The other discrimination suit in ’96,” Farris substitutes. “That’s it? No other history with these kind of accusations at other companies? From Vallarta?”

“Ms. Vallarta was hired right after she finished her MBA,” says Alan. “Most likely, she was slated for a job before she’d finished undergrad at Williams.”

Grayson sends Veronica a look—a _Told you so_ look. _Vallarta’s a spoiled princess,_ he’s thinking. Veronica files this away, another slice of information about the case, not important now, maybe later, but now she has a potential witness in the office, and that’s where her attention needs to be.

It’s just funny, that’s all, that the HR director at a company like Com-Rite would get uncomfortable with the word “physical.”

* * *

Logan’s back in San Diego. She has known the approximate date of his return for months, but he sends her a text the day he docks and Veronica can’t help the grin that spreads over her face as she reads the message. She’s at the office, and Amrit notices.

“Good news?” he asks conversationally, from where he sits beside Grayson at the latter’s desk. They’re pouring over Com-Rite’s extensive employee contract, while Veronica peruses—with a highlighter and purpose—the company’s human resources manual.

“Must be, just look at her,” teases Grayson.

Veronica finds herself longing to nod and explain—explain what? That her friend just returned from deployment? It’s not a very interesting story, when put like that. (Logan would know how to describe it better, make it sound like something from Homer, but she’s never been as eloquent.)

Veronica doesn’t mind Amrit, who is good at his job and doesn’t stare at her chest when he thinks she’s not looking, but she does not want to bond with Grayson, doesn’t really want him having access to those parts of her life—Neptune, Logan, really anything that extends beyond the Preston, Farris office building. Still, she’s nearly overcome with the desire to share this... this feeling with someone.

She nods briefly, and the damn smile won’t go away, and then she returns to her work.

 _Not that it matters_ , she realizes later. It’s not like she’ll see Logan any time soon.

She makes her way home that evening, the muggy early August heat sitting heavy with her in the un-air-conditioned cab. Travis, the scruffy writer from the third floor, tries to chat her up in the elevator, but she’s polite in her dismissal because she feels good—good, if slightly anxious. She changes into track shorts and a comfortable t-shirt, pours herself a glass of wine, and curls up on her couch, phone poised in her hand.

Just before she selects Logan’s contact information, she panics. It’s Logan’s _first night_ back—about seven o’clock his time. He might be anywhere. He might be out partying with Dick. Celebrating with his squadron. He might have a date already planned, for all she knows. He’s probably not—strike that, _definitely_ not—sitting by his cell phone, waiting for his ex-of-ten-years-and-sometimes-e-mail-buddy to call.

She stares at his too-old contact picture; young, soft, sad Logan stares right back, so _little_. _Her Logan_. She hasn’t had the heart to change the picture away from _Her Logan._

Veronica frowns and stabs the green _call_ button.

If he doesn’t pick up, she’ll leave a super casual voicemail.

Something like, _Heard you went domestic. Thought I’d say ‘hi!’_

_Ring._

Fuck. What if he really doesn’t answer? And Jesus, she was _looking forward_ to this!

_Ring._

How pathetic is it that a phone conversation with someone who isn’t even her boyfriend, hasn’t been for a decade, is the highlight of her fucking _day..._?

_Ring. Ring._

Well, whatever, it’s not like he didn’t cold-call her after _nine years_ to help him off murder charges, so...

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control,” Veronica hears his voice, his voice which sounds _wonderfully low_ and sweet and warm.

She stretches contentedly on the couch, then stuffs her sock-clad feet under a cushion. It’s a sudden luxury, being able to talk to him, hear his voice again, after months and years of _not_. She hears the smile in his voice and thinks he probably hears her responding grin: “I _told_ you I’d call, Lieutenant.”

* * *

August 2016 

“Curtis Alan, the HR director? He had an affair with Vallarta,” Veronica tells Farris, once she takes the offered chair across from her boss. It’s after five on a Friday in mid-August; they’ve both been in the office since seven, and they’ll be there till ten tonight. Strolling into partners’ offices with curve balls like this is a move that Veronica is proud to admit she’s trademarked among the junior associates—she’s the only one to do so successfully. Most of her peers are still too afraid of T _he Guys Upstairs_ , but Veronica has had more practice pissing off older men in expensive suits, and the thought doesn’t intimidate her so much anymore. It’s not like any of these guys would actually want her dead, which makes them kittens compared to the foes of years long gone. It’s all a bit prosaic once the hunky star of such cinematic masterpieces as _Hair Trigger_ and _Fatal Vengeance II_ (not to mention your boyfriend’s dad) has tried to light you on fire.

“Curtis Alan?” Farris hunches over his desk and folds his hands in front of him, so that his Rolex catches the light. “Another hunch?”

“It was a hunch last week,” says Veronica calmly. “Now, there’s proof. They were careful, but Mrs. Alan hired a private detective to tail her husband last December, and he got a money shot.” She turns over the manila envelope that she’s been jealously guarding for the past hour, since the bike messenger put it in her hands. Farris examines the contents for about three seconds and then refocuses on Veronica.

“So the wife knows?”

“Actually, no. The P.I. contacted Alan and got him to pay double his wife’s rate in exchange for the pictures. Then the private _dick_ told Clara that her husband was clean and faithful.” It’s encouraging, in a way, to know that there are Vinnie Van Lowes all over the country—Neptune isn’t the only scummy place on the planet.

“Clara?” Farris’s voice is soft but clear.

“Mrs. Alan,” Veronica amends.

“How did you get this?” Farris gestures at the envelope. Veronica shrugs.

_The truth?_

Consider Mrs. Clara Alan: forty-two, expensive dye-job, a fifteen-year-old daughter at boarding school in Connecticut, on the board of, count ‘em: _one, two, three_ different charities—Veronica _knows_ this woman. Veronica knows twelve of this woman, and at the end of the day, did Celeste Kane, who had Waterford crystal soap dispensers in every bathroom, ever go to a high-end P.I. agency? Nope. When she was really afraid of something, really ashamed, she hid it away in a contract with Keith Mars on the wrong side of town.

If Mr. Alan had an affair, it was entirely possible Mrs. Alan had an inkling. And would she hire a reliable detective in an expensive Tribeca office to find the truth? Of course not. No, Mrs. Alan would be headed for a cheap, tacky agency over a dry cleaner’s. Somewhere with a bus stop bench ad. Somewhere as sordid and shameful as the thing that she’s expecting—maybe even hoping—to find out.

And sure, for Veronica, that left dozens of options in a city like New York, but there was only one agency bench ad on the same block as the Alans’ penthouse, and Mrs. Alan’s bichon frise is named Fluffy and has a collar from Tiffany’s, so Veronica isn’t handing out any points for creativity.

That’s the truth.

For her boss, Veronica abbreviates:

“I speak low-rent P.I.”

Farris wasn’t involved in Veronica’s hiring and may not know the finer points of her résumé, but he knows the _Veronica Mars Highlights_ that everyone in the office is well familiar with: witness in the Aaron Echolls murder trial, gave testimony for the proceedings against Bonnie DeVille’s confessed murderers. “Low rent?” asks the older man, amused. “I thought your history ran something closer to _P.I. to the Stars_.”

“Those were...” Veronica pauses, collects herself, “ _pro-bono._ ”

“How altruistic.”

“I was...” _What, Veronica?_ A voice in her head tells her not to take the dive down this particular rabbit hole, because that _isn’t you anymore,_ but something about the way Farris’s crystal blue eyes fix on her tells her that she doesn’t have a choice in this. He may play coy, but he wants an answer. “Those were favors for old friends.”

“Some favors.”

“Some friends.”

Farris is satisfied for the moment. He returns his attention to the envelope in his hands. “Vallarta withheld this.”

“She could be sitting on it,” Veronica guesses. “She avoided lying in her statement, so maybe once we’ve prepped for her case against Gainsborough, she’ll bring it out? It could be her ace in the hole. ”

“Or ours.”

Neither of them are smiling, but the look exchanged has a similar feel. “Curtis Alan lied to us,” says Veronica after a beat. “He said Vallarta wasn’t sleeping with anyone at Com-Rite.”

Only one of Farris’s eyebrows rises now. His voice is dry when he asks: “And that surprises you?”

“No,” Veronica admits. “But it’s not very helpful either.”

* * *

“All right, let’s hear it.” Logan’s voice is playfully resigned, and Veronica tries to picture him; she imagines an invitational wave, then tries not to get distracted thinking about Logan’s hands.

“Hear what?” she replies, because she really has no idea.

“Whatever’s making you sound like you doubled up on a dosage of Ni-Quil before calling me?”

“Maybe you just put me to sleep.” She yawns for emphasis.

“Hmm, tempting...” (Veronica smirks and if she blushes a little, she doesn’t have to admit it) “But I don’t buy it. Seems like evasive maneuvers to me.”

Veronica considers and rejects the idea of another quip—something about him never complaining about her maneuvers before, thank-you-very-much, and instead opts for some version of the truth. “I hate the client I’m working with right now. It’s exhausting.” She closes her eyes against the dining area; her neglected laptop and case notes disappear with the take-out containers and Diet Coke. For a moment, it’s just darkness and Logan’s voice.

“The big bad insurance company?”

“Mmm.” She can’t really say more about it, confidentiality and all, but the suit against Com-Rite is coming with a series of other headlining discrimination cases, so it’s been in the news here and there, and Veronica may have bragged a little in their first phone conversation after Logan’s return.

“It’s not the first client that you’ve hated,” he points out.

“No.” He’s right. She’s romanticizing the past—the P.I. biz. Indifferent spouses trying to blackmail their way into a huge settlement, ruthless parents looking for control of their kid’s trust fund, the Kanes, the Russian mob... hell, Logan, at one time: it wasn’t always a crusade for justice. Sometimes she and her dad just had to do whatever it took to keep the lights on. She massages her forehead and feels an oncoming headache. “I know.”

“Even Fred MacMurray gets a fair trial,” Logan lilts. Veronica smiles.

“And this plaintiff is no Shirley MacLaine.”

“That’s the way it crumbles. Cookie-wise.”

Veronica opens her eyes; her work, her dinner, and her loft come back into focus, and she sighs.

“Was that another yawn? Are you falling asleep on me, swear to God, Veronica Mars...”

Veronica laughs, because she really can’t help herself. “Hmmm, _tempting_ , but...”

* * *

“I don’t know… most of the time, it wasn’t anything Ms. Vallarta would _say_ or _do_ , exactly...” Tim is mid-level management at the Com-Rite New York office. He wears a middle-management suit, a middle-management bald spot, and he holds the cup of coffee Patty brought him as though it were the natural extension of his arm. It’s just after nine o’clock one morning in late August, and Veronica and Amrit have been charged with vetting some of Martha Vallarta’s co-workers. Tim’s been here half an hour, and Veronica already knows they won’t get anything useful out of the fifty-five-year-old data processing sub-director; even with his well-worn wedding band and guileless brown eyes, the reliability that Tim projects isn’t worth the concessions that any decent attorney would force him to make under oath. “It wasn’t anything she did wrong, usually,” Tim goes on, “it was just the _way_ she did things. She doesn’t know how to communicate with people. No people skills. She’d tell an employee to do something, but she sounded like she already expected it to be done. Any time she communicated with anyone in my department, I would have to go in and patch things up after. Play good cop, you know? A boss has to have a certain... _gravitas_... that Ms. Vallarta never had with her employees. And I know, I know, she’s the boss, but she didn’t have to be such a...”

“I would advise,” Amrit interrupts, “against pejoratives.” Tim looks properly chastened as his eyes flit downward and he takes a long pull from his coffee.

“Considering gender discrimination _is_ one of the charges Ms. Vallarta is levying,” Veronica adds, sending Amrit a look that makes him smile.

“I’m not sexist,” says Tim contritely. “I just think women _say_ they want equality, and then turn around and ask for special treatment.” He nods to Veronica. “Not _you_ , I’m sure. Look, I’m not saying _all_ women. But that’s the kind of woman Ms. Vallarta is.”

“The district supervisor for the Boston offices is a woman,” says Amrit, once Tim has left them alone in the conference room relegated for their use this morning. “She would have interacted with Vallarta a lot. I’ll get her in here tomorrow morning.”

“You mean you _don’t_ want Class Action Joe there to be our shining example of Post-Feminist equality in the workplace?” Veronica asks, faux shocked. She’s scrolling through her e-mails on her phone, but she smirks up at Amrit, who frowns thoughtfully.

“ _Maybe_ not,” he jokes. “Hey, Mars, when was the last time you had a boss ask _nicely_ when he wanted something done, anyway?”

“I believe that would be... when I was answering phones for my dad in the eleventh grade.”

“And yet it’s always you ladies that we hear about needing to brush up on their ‘people skills.’ _Weird_ , huh?”

“Careful, Kundra. That sounds like insubordination.”

* * *

“Tony-from-Law-School-Tony?” Mac repeats. A smidgen of surprise, but no disapproval, bless her.

"No, Tony Soprano."

Mac ignores the sarcasm. “What did he say?”

Veronica props her cell between her ear and her shoulder while she reaches, with difficulty, for the olive oil on the top shelf. Sunday evenings, like tonight, she tries to cook for herself. She’s doing something new and vaguely sophisticated with halibut, while Mac, twenty-five hundred miles away, preps a more timely kale salad dinner. “Paired with scotch,” Mac added, when Veronica teased her about it. _Kale. Really?_ Now, they’re chatting about the text message Veronica received a few days ago from a guy she knew at Columbia, and the normalcy of talking with her girlfriend about boys is comforting.

“He just asked if I wanted to get coffee sometime,” says Veronica. She finally reaches the olive oil and coats the pan on the stove in it. “But I know he ran into Andrea last week, so...”

“So he knows that Piz is no more,” Mac concludes.

“Ex _act_ ly.”

“Are you going to meet up with him?”

“I told him I was busy with work— _which is true_ , but I’ll get back to him.”

“Won’t it be weird?”

“Because he tried to kiss me when I had a boyfriend?”

“In a word: yes.”

Veronica considers the sizzling frying pan before her. “Probably,” she says. “Maybe I’ll just blow it off.” She takes the fish from the counter and lays it gently in the pan, and over the sizzling, coos to Mac: “So let’s talk about _you_ , Cindy. Any special gentlemen suitors I should know about?”

“Well, I don’t think I’m going out with Sam again,” says Mac with a snort. “He keeps sending me invites for games on Facebook.”

“Oh, God.”

“I know. I am almost thirty years old: I am most definitely too old for that shit.”

“How’s work?”

“Oh, pretty good.” Mac lets out a breath that crackles over the phone. “I’m team leader on this small development project. I have to sign away the rights to a little more of my soul, but they repay you in company stock, so...”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it.”

“Workin’ for the man has it perks, Bond. Oooh, and they’ve added a full bagel bar to the break room!” 

* * *

 

September 2016 

“Well, we can’t depose Vallarta again, and she didn’t technically _lie_ about the affair with Alan.” Veronica sighs, wanting to slump over the conference table she’s seated at. She resists the urge because she’s pretty sure Mr. Farris would find it unprofessional. “We’ll have to use Alan.”

Farris is pacing in front of the window, hands behind his back. “I think Alan will lie,” he muses.

“Even under oath?”

Her boss sends a pointed look in her direction, and then continues his methodical pacing. Farris is good-looking for fifty-seven: not that Veronica looks at him _that way_ (the whole “older man” thing lost its appeal for her about a decade ago, and hasn’t really redeemed itself in the interim), but she likes that he doesn’t do that cheesy, too-tan, cologned-up thing that some of the other older men in the office do. She likes that he’s a bit misanthropic and maybe he’s sometimes dismissive of... people in general, but it doesn’t seem like he’s doing it to prove a point, like the other partners do. It’s more like he’s just too tired to waste his _literally_ valuable time. And Veronica can appreciate that—especially since he makes exceptions for his proteges, and Veronica is one of them.

“Well, what if he has nothing to lose in telling the truth?” Veronica suggests. “If his wife finds out and leaves him, we might be able to get him to testify that he and Vallarta engaged in a consensual affair—they’re in totally different hierarchies, so she couldn’t say she had anything to gain or lose by sleeping with him, and it establishes a pattern of behavior... if we can work out the timeline, it might even prove that she _couldn’t_ have been with Gainsborough at the times she claims.”

Like a good lawyer, Farris never asks a question for which he doesn’t already have an answer: “And Alan’s wife would find out...?”

Veronica shrugs. “She already has her suspicions if she hired a private investigator. Maybe the guy’ll have a change of heart?”

Grayson joins them, then, with a stack of files that Farris ordered him to fetch (much to Veronica’s glee). While the two men discuss some detail about the Senior VP—Gainsborough’s—testimony, Veronica reflects (dismally) on how familiar all of this is. Cheating spouses, money shots— _it’s like high school all over again._

She finds herself undertaking a familiar exercise in justification: she makes a list of reasons why this is the right course of action.

_1\. Mrs. Alan clearly wanted to find out about her husband’s activities._

_2\. Mr. Alan_ was _cheating._

_3\. The ugly truth is always better than a happy fiction._

Satisfied, Veronica returns her attention to the interaction between Grayson and Farris.

“The cab receipts could’ve been faked easily anyway, and the doorman doesn't want to swear to...” Grayson is saying, and then he’s interrupted by the opening of the conference room door and Farris’s executive assistant. Farris adores his seventy-two year old, thoroughly savvy secretary, Linda, or else she’d never get away with such an interruption.

“Benson’s waiting in your office, Max,” says Linda, and that effectively dismisses Grayson and Veronica. They gather up their paperwork and start back towards their own office.

Veronica checks her text messages as they walk. There’s another one from Tony-from-Law-School-Tony, asking if she’s free any night this weekend. Veronica reads it and clicks away— _I’ll worry about that tomorrow_. She refocuses on work.

“Where’s Amrit today?” she asks, when she and Grayson step into the elevator. “Out with a client _again_?” It’s the third day in a row.

Grayson looks at her, clearly surprised and just a little amused. “You haven’t heard? Kundra’s _gone_ , Mars.”

This throws her completely. “ _Gone_ gone? Let go? I didn’t even know he was on the chopping block!”

“They always drop a bunch of us second years anyway,” says Grayson casually; he likes to do this—remind people that he’s a sophomore at Preston, Farris. It would be annoying, but it’s so far down on the list of things Veronica doesn’t like about Grayson that she almost doesn’t notice it. “And it wasn’t going to be _me_.”

She’s about to roll her eyes and say, _oh, because you’re so brilliant,_ but there’s something about the way he says it. “What do you mean?” she asks instead; once again, it’s the right question.

“This is one of the most competitive firms in the city, Mars. That’s just how it goes.” The elevator deposits them on their floor, and Veronica dreads the answer to the next question, but she has to ask.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing!” It’s a lie; he’s smirking. “Okay, so you know how Farris wanted me to track down that guy who quit because he said Vallarta was a bitch or whatever? The guy from Milwaukee?” Veronica nods. “I just told Kundra that Farris wanted _him_ to do it. It wasn’t a big deal, but then Kundra is subbing in on that contract dispute case with Bournewell, and I guess he couldn't take the pressure with the work, and his wife’s pregnancy... he fucked something up in the other case, and Bournewell put him on the chopping block.”

They reach the door to their office, now shared just between the two of them, Veronica supposes, and she stares in disbelief at her coworker. “Oh c’mon,” Grayson oozes, smiling, amused, _don’t be such a spoilsport, Veronica, the betrayal of my supposed friend is funny, don’t you get the joke, ha ha._ “If Kundra had the opportunity, he’d have done the same thing! So would you, right? I mean, be honest...” Veronica follows him into the office. He deposits his papers on his desk, and strolls over to the couch, falling cheerfully onto it. “Everybody’s got their own— _edge_. Right?” He’s eyeing the hemline of her skirt, and Veronica clutches the binder she’s carrying closer to her chest, like it might hide something.

She knows exactly what he’s trying to say, though. “Um— _no_.”

“No?” He’s still smiling, but doubtful. “Not even _Farris_?”

“ _Fuck_ you.” Veronica sits down at her desk.

“It’s not insulting, Mars, your undergrad-social-scientist morality is cute, but grow up.” Grayson climbs off the couch. “It doesn’t mean you’re not good at your job or whatever. But you don’t _really_ expect me to believe that the _one_ first year associate that Maxwell _Fucking_ Farris chooses to make his pet just _happens_ to be the hot blonde in the little pencil skirts. Hey, hey, hey I’m not saying it’s bad! If anything, it makes me like you more.”

* * *

“I hate him so much, I swear, Logan, I am going to get the asshole fired if it’s the _last_ thing I do.”

“Fired?” echoes Logan, grainy over the phone. “You’ve mellowed with age, Veronica. I remember a time when you wouldn’t have rested until you’d gotten him fired, dumped, evicted, and ruined his credit score.”

“Well, I’ve been out of the game a while.” Veronica slams her refrigerator door shut and opens her beer with a violent flick of the bottle-opener. “Let me work up to that.”

When there’s no immediate response, Veronica realizes that Logan has been a little quieter than usual this conversation. Not that she’s given him much opportunity to talk, since she pretty much opened with “ _I hate this guy at work_ ,” and has been in that same vein for the last—she checks the timer on her phone— _oops_ , twenty minutes.

“But enough about _me_ —how have _you_ been?” She tries to sound cheerful as she sits down at the kitchen table and takes a long drink from her Stella.

“I’ve...” he pauses, and Veronica freezes; something is very wrong. “Actually, I’ve had some kind of bad news here. A friend of mine—was killed; there was an accident on the _Truman_ , he was deployed, and...” He trails off. Veronica closes her eyes, covers her mouth with her hand.

“Oh my God, Logan, I’m so sorry.” _Idiot, running your mouth about Grayson when Logan’s friend just died, what is wrong with you?_ “I’m so, so sorry—what happened?”

“Pilot error. Just a stupid little—yeah, it’s really sad. Um. I’m flying up to Washington for the funeral tomorrow, actually.”

“I’m so...” She should stop apologizing, she knows, “So, sorry,” but can’t seem to. She’s stuck on _so sorry_ , because there’s nothing else to be. She can’t look at him, can’t touch him, can’t hold his hand, and it’s not fair. It’s so fucking unfair. All the people he’s lost, and now another, so soon after Carrie. “What was his name?”

“Vince.” He lets out a shaky breath. “’Called him ‘Bilbo.’ He was—a _massive_ nerd.”

So, for the next hour and a half, Logan talks about his friend Vince, who is dead. In the process, Veronica learns things she never knew about his first deployment, about combat and training and flying a plane, and about what grown up Logan is like at work. She thinks he’s probably as wonderfully obnoxious as he is otherwise.

Then, when it’s past midnight Veronica’s time, Logan breaks off abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she doesn’t follow until he explains: “It’s late, I’ve been talking...”

“No, God, no Logan, it’s—I just wish...” _I could finish a damn sentence, maybe?_

“Thank-you,” he spares her. “Really, just to talk about it was...” Uncharacteristically taciturn: “Good.”

“What time’s your flight tomorrow?” Veronica asks softly, because she has to say something.

“Eleven. I wanted to fly out yesterday, but... there was some paperwork and stuff to figure out.” He hesitates, and Veronica knows she’s missing something, but isn’t sure how to ask, so she waits: “I’m taking Bilbo’s place in a couple weeks. On the _Truman_.”

Veronica’s stomach drops. Suddenly, it’s not just about Logan’s friend Vince, who is dead. It’s his friend but it could’ve been Logan. Almost was, maybe. And now he’s—he’s going back, just like that. Veronica’s overcome by the desire to scream at him. _Don’t go, stay, please stay, please don’t go back out there, are you crazy, you could die, you could..._

And Logan _can’t_ die. It's imperative, doesn't he realize...

“How long will you be gone?” she whispers, because again, she has to say _something_ that isn’t _don’t even think about it_.

“Few months,” says Logan. “Should be back just after Christmas.”

Veronica nods—pointlessly, he can’t see, obviously.

 _Should be back, might not be, God knows_.

“I’ll...” She swallows, _miss talking to you_ , and says: “start making a list of e-mail subject headers.”

Logan’s tone is warm and appreciative when he replies: “Good. The Bowie joke is... really played out.”

* * *

Following her last conversation with Logan, Veronica’s outrage towards Grayson spikes, but there’s no outlet for it. Their workload has increased, since Farris hasn’t brought on any new associates to aid them in Amrit’s absence, and Veronica is stuck in the office until well after midnight most nights. Farris’s goal is to have the Com-Rite case thrown out altogether before proceedings really begin, so Veronica hopes that the thing will be over with soon, and she can move on to something that _doesn’t_ involve working with Cole Grayson.

The stars align in her favor about a week after she hears the news of Logan’s imminent deployment. She knows—from the low-rent P.I. with the bus stop bench-ads who she’s half-blackmailing into this job—that Curtis Alan’s wife has left her husband and is staying at the Hilton. With this information, Farris calls Alan back into the Preston, Farris & Hewitt building and sets him up in his office with a tumbler full of bourbon. When Alan is nice and comfortable, Farris throws the manila folder of money shots onto the glass coffee table between them, and Veronica thinks she should enjoy this more. She _did_ get a special invite from a _partner_ to witness it, after all. She sits, perched in the corner of the office, taking it all in.

Alan flips through three of the pictures, and then carefully places them back in the envelope. He reseals it, places it on the table, and folds his hands, all in silence. Farris drapes his arms over the back of his own stylish black leather chair and waits.

“I was trying to protect her,” Alan admits eventually. “We were together a few months. I had—I had no _idea_ about Gainsborough at the time. That she was sleeping with him, too. We were working together a lot, at the time, Marty and I, and we just—I’d been having problems at home. I’d always been faithful to Clara, this was the first time... I know, it’s not an excuse, but...”

“We don’t need the _reasons_ , Curt,” says Farris, with a weary sigh. “We just want to know what you’re going to do for us in the case.”

“What _can_ I do?” Alan sighs. “I was telling the truth when I said there was no evidence about an affair with Gainsborough. She and I were together three months—I thought we were... _in love_. I thought—but for all I know, she was setting me up, just like Gainsborough, trying to get some kind of settlement. I don’t know.” Alan sets down his bourbon and rests his forehead in the palms of his hands. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

* * *

“I tell you, these Johns are... they are a _class-act_ . I love when it’s the really _rich_ old ladies hire me. The kids? The kids go to big fancy firms with all the desks and all the phones, but the society wives can’t resist an agency with _atmosphere_ . That’s really what I’m selling, with the magnets and the bus ad and the little pens—it’s the _atmosphere_ , y’know, and...”

Kenny Wisemore is Veronica’s bench-ad P.I., and he likes to talk. He isn’t lying about selling atmosphere; he looks like your stereotypical schluppy private eye; yellowing oxford shirt peeking out of ill-fitting slacks; soup-stained tie; he’s even talking with his mouth full of donut, as he conducts his closing interview, so to speak, with Veronica. She’s had him keeping an eye on Clara and Curtis Alan for the last few weeks, in case anything turns up, and, since it hasn’t, she’s pretty sure that this will be the last conversation she has to have with the Big Apple’s Vinnie Van Lowe.

It’s oddly disconcerting, having a latte with this guy, in a coffee shop on Lexington; it’s like a parallel universe version of a dozen conversations she’s had with another sleazy Private Dick on the other coast.

“Kenny, is there anything else?” Veronica interrupts, “or did you just invite me down here so you could bill this meal?”

“Pretty much,” Kenny admits. “Actually, I was kinda figurin’ _you’d_ pay for it.”

“Right.” She gathers up her purse and brief case and makes to stand.

“Wait, wait, wait—I got real, legal reasons on bein’ here. Besides to see your pretty face.” He winks at her.

“Kenny,” sighs Veronica.

“Yeah, all right. Looks, I got all kinds of documents. Phone records, credit card statements... you should _see_ the stuff these uptight corporate types buy. Real romantic—the guy got his mistress _a fountain pen and_ _monogrammed handkerchiefs_...” (uttered in something that is probably supposed to be a posh English accent) “for her birthday.”

Veronica takes the papers. “We already have proof that Alan was sleeping with Vallarta, we don’t need...” she stops. “How do you know it was for her birthday?”

Kenny splashes coffee on his shirt, and proceeds to mop it up with his donut. “’Cuz of the flowers. He got ‘em at the same time, so I figured. There’s a note, too. They charge by the word and put everythin’ on those detailed statements, it’s a real time-saver in my biz...”

Veronica flips through the papers Kenny has handed her and sees that he’s right. “Why would he do that?” she asks, more to herself. “They were so careful, they didn’t leave a paper trail, but then for her _birthday_ of all things...”

“Well,” says the P.I., “maybe it’s not technically _his_ credit card.”

Veronica raises an eyebrow.

“It’s his brother’s,” Kenny admits. “But you gotta admit, that is some _pretty advanced sleuthin’_ on my part _...”_

“You’re a regular Agatha Christie,” says Veronica. She flips to the front of the credit card statement and sees the name at the top: Jason Alan.

Then she notices the date.

* * *

“They were both in on it,” says Veronica, instead of “hello.” Farris looks up at her from amid a sea of papers, and she drops in front of his desk. She once blackmailed the software billionaire who owned half of Southern California: pissing off some snooty corporate lawyer is child’s play. “Vallarta and Alan. It’s a scam! The plan all along was to bargain their way into a big settlement. Alan had to play along with us and with corporate, so that there would be a compelling case _against_ Vallarta. If it was too cut and dry, Com-Rite would take it to court, and they don’t want this to go to court any more than we do. They want to take a very large settlement and get the hell away from this."

Farris blinks. Twice, just to be sure.

“They even hired your old partner as her counsel!” Veronica gushes, before he can say anything. “They would've known that we're on retainer for Com-Rite, and it would be easy enough to make the connection. They thought you and Alexander would be more inclined to make a deal, since you worked together!”

“Evidence?” asks Farris.

“There’s a paper trail,” she assures him. “Alan bought Vallarta monogrammed handkerchiefs for her birthday.”

“So?”

“Her birthday is in August. Long after Vallarta filed and they supposedly broke up. They’re still involved. Probably, Vallarta only started sleeping with Gainsborough to sue the company in the first place.” She nods confidently. “Kenneth Wisemore, at fifty an hour, found it, so _we’ll_ be definitely able to prove it.”

Farris smirks. “Sounds like a dismissal to me,” he says.

Veronica nods. “I can _hear_ the bells.”

* * *

“Why did you join the Navy?” Veronica finally asks on Logan’s last night before he ships out again. She’s lying in her bed, phone pressed to her ear, staring at the dark ceiling of her loft, and she has to know.

“You mean, why not the Army, Air Force, or Marines?” he replies, and Veronica sighs.

“No.” That’s not what she means; she doesn’t have the energy to say the last part, but Logan understands.

“I don’t know, I—I was just fucked up for a while there.” Veronica closes her eyes. She’s waiting for something, and that means she has to hear this—hear about the part of his life that is over and done with, but still scares her to think about. “And I kept thinking I would hit rock bottom, but I didn’t. You know, you’d think after the first O.D.—but if not then, surely after the _second_ , and yet...”

“Logan.” She really, really, really needs him to stop talking about his near death experiences, for God’s sake.

“Right, well, after that I guess I had some kind of moment of clarity and—got myself a mentor, the usual redemption-arc bullshit, and Navy pilot was... it was a logical path, believe it or not, and I needed _something_. Maybe anything would’ve worked that would’ve forced me to stay clean, sober, and conscious, and it just happened to be the Navy that panned out.”

“Yeah,” says Veronica. That she understands. That’s what she was waiting to hear. That’s familiar. She feels the same way about law school: well, not with the clean, sober, and conscious thing, but the need for direction. Guidance. A plan.

“But I wouldn’t have made it if that was all,” Logan continues. “I could’ve washed at any time. But there were parts I really loved, y’know—especially once I started flying, that was—it’s unbelievable, seriously, Veronica...” She smiles and wishes she could see him get all excited about it, “But even just feeling like I was doing something that was worth the energy it took to do it. Feeling like other people needed me to keep my shit together long enough to do something. You know?” He half laughs, “Of course you do, that’s what you and _normal people_ feel like all the time, but when you’re a useless nineteen-year-old with too much money...”

“You weren’t useless,” Veronica interrupts him, almost angrily. She takes herself and Logan by surprise with it, but she can’t help herself. She was so _fucking in love_ with that stupid nineteen-year-old at one point, she doesn’t think she can stand to hear another word against him.

“Well I wasn’t particularly use _ful,”_ Logan replies carefully.

Veronica sighs.

She misses Logan.

But also: she misses feeling like she’s doing something that’s worth the energy it takes to do it.

* * *

After the judge dismisses the suit against Com-Rite, Veronica gets what she used to think of as her _gotcha_ moment. The moment when she faces down with the asshole she’s just served. She didn’t always get these moments in the private investigation game—sometimes she just got threatened in a moving elevator, or told that her father was going to go prison, or blown off altogether. But as rare as they were as a P.I., she really wasn’t expecting to get _any_ moments like this as a grown up lawyer, so the encounter in the courthouse bathroom is more than a little disconcerting.

Martha Vallarta is applying dark lipstick in the mirror, when Veronica emerges and diligently avoids eye contact in her own, patented, _I don’t give a fuck, but I’m also not going to have a conversation with you_ way.

Ms. Vallarta is in her forties, but her black, tailored suit gives her the silhouette of a twenty-five-year-old. It’s strange seeing her apply make-up; Veronica has sort of assumed that she simply emerged from the womb in Prada and Estee Lauder... or at the very least, that she pays someone else to do this kind of thing for her. But here she is ( _Marty,_ Alan called her), prepping herself after what must have been a devastating letdown. She hopes Vallarta doesn’t recognize her as she hastily washes her hands all the way at the other end of the counter, but of course...

“A word of advice from an older woman,” Vallarta says, not breaking eye contact with her own reflection, “if a man tells you he has a _brilliant_ idea, turn and run in the other direction. I thought I learned that lesson at my junior prom, but here we are.”

Veronica can’t help herself, and anyway, the case is over. “‘A _man_ made me do it?’” she says skeptically. “ _Seriously_?”

Ms. Vallarta puts down her lipstick, but she still looks only at her own face in the mirror. “I was with Doug Gainsborough for a _year._ I was going to call it quits after eight months, but then he tells me that I’m going to get senior VP when he’s promoted at the end of next year, and I knew if I cut him out...” She trails off. “Anyway, we’re together for a few more months, and then Doug tells me they’re giving senior VP to that—that _prick_ from Detroit...” (She closes her eyes over the expletive), “because I just wasn’t ‘personable.’ People didn’t _respect_ me. And I told Doug we were done, and he _laughed_. I went on two dates with Curtis from HR three years ago, so I knew him, and I thought that this was—this was what you were _supposed_ to do if you had trouble with a coworker. A regular employee would just go to Human Resources. And then—and then Curtis gave me all kinds of options; and then options turned into a plan, and then _a_ plan turned into ‘the’ plan. I fucked it up, though.” Vallarta smiles, and for the first time, she meets Veronica’s stare over the mirror. “I was supposed to wait until I could gather a lot of real, hard proof about Gainsborough, but I brought the suit forward too soon. I just couldn’t stand sleeping with him anymore.” She sighs. “Are you fucking your boss?”

Veronica swallows and shakes her head.

“Really?”

Veronica shakes her head again, she doesn’t know what else to do.

“The older man, in the Armani?”

“No, I know who my boss is,” snaps Veronica, “I’m just not sleeping with him.”

Ms. Vallarta sighs. “Well _don’t_.” She picks her lipstick up from the counter and replaces it in her bag. “It was my own fault. I did it stupidly. Next time, there wouldn’t be as many mistakes.” She turns and clicks out of the bathroom.

That night, Veronica lies in bed and thinks about Logan on his tin can with no bars, and her phone vibrates. It’s Tony-From-Law-School-Tony, and she’s all out of excuses, so she makes plans with him for that weekend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part III still under review, but it'll be along. Also, the timeline was a pain for this and a lot of the legal stuff is just silly, but I figure if RT can take liberties with such details as, you know, how many months are in a year (dammit, MKAT), I can take some creative liberties as well.


	3. Games

Autumn 2016

“Veronica! _Veronica!_ Hey, Mars!”

Veronica stops at the sound of her name, which catches her off guard as it is called out in the refrigerated aisle of Whole Foods. She turns to see the man hailing her; he pushes a cart toward her at a light jog, and she almost doesn’t recognize Amrit Kundra when he’s not shrouded in the standard-issue Preston, Farris & Hewitt suit. But then she puts it all together, and yes, it’s Amrit, he’s just wearing a sweater and jeans and an aura of relaxation that momentarily puts Veronica on edge. She schools her features into a smile, though, and then finds herself legitimately pleased to see him.

“Amrit, hi! How are you?” she greets as he comes up to her.

“Good, good, how are you?”

“Oh, good. Don’t judge me by this shopping cart, I usually eat only the healthiest of foods.”

“Hey, if you buy it here, it’s not _frozen pizza_ , it’s _gourmet flat bread_ _with pepperoni_.”

“Exactly!” They share a laugh, and Veronica tries to remember his wife’s name. That’s right: “How’s Priya? She must be ready to pop, huh?”

“Oh, yeah. That’s what brings me here, actually.” He gestures to his shopping cart and a more than healthy stock of ice cream. “She’s due next month. And it’s a girl.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thanks. And, hey, congrats on Com-Rite, by the way.”

“Thanks.” Amrit’s smile is sincere, but she still feels a little guilty, so she quickly redirects: “So what are you doing these days? Besides getting ready for the baby.”

“I’m at Foxx and Associates,” he tells her, and Veronica recognizes the name as belonging to some smaller firm downtown.

“Criminal defense, mostly, right?”

“Yeah. I know, I was a little surprised, too, but they had a good pitch and—I’m enjoying it.”

“Yeah? I was so sorry to hear about you leaving Preston, Farris. That—sucks. I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be. All honesty, and it’s not just sour grapes, but I was starting to get sick of the whole P.F.H. vibe.”

“Yeah. Still, I can’t believe they let you go over one stupid little mistake on a contract dispute.” Veronica rolls her eyes.

Amrit smiles down into his cart and shakes his head. “That wasn’t it really.”

“It wasn’t?”

“That was the excuse, but... truth is, there was a rumor going around that I was shopping.”

Veronica blinks several times, trying to figure it out. “For another job?” Amrit nods. “Were you?”

“Not really. Not seriously. I had lunch with a guy from Foxx, but I wasn’t _really_ going to pursue it. With the baby coming, I wouldn’t have had the balls to leave that Preston, Farris paycheck, but this guy I used to work with at Blevins got a job there, and he wanted to talk.”

Veronica sighs. “And here I’ve been blaming Grayson all these months.” She crosses her arms. “You should know, he takes credit for you getting let go. He acts like it’s a part of some grand, Frank Underwood-style plan.”

Amrit shakes his head again, and he appears genuinely unconcerned by this piece of news. God, he seems so relaxed, Veronica wants to hand him a stack of paperwork just so he looks a little more like himself. _This must be what the high road is like._ “I wouldn’t cut Grayson _too_ much slack, though,” he says, and Veronica raises an eyebrow. “How do you think the shopping-rumor got started?”

“Really?”

Amrit nods. “Grayson was the only one who knew.”

* * *

Tony is nice.

And his last name isn’t _From-Law-School-Tony_ , no matter what Mac thinks. It’s Arriaga. So there.

He’s not _Piz_ nice, though; he’s got edge. Not _Occasionally Gets Accused of Murder_ edge, but... never mind.

He was the biggest shit-talker in Veronica’s Constitutional Law class, and for most of their first year, he was the guy with a different undergrad on his arm every week. He matured some point after that, and somehow, he and Veronica and Veronica’s friend Stewart ended up in a study group. In her second year at Columbia, her study group was her _life_. Even in the last year-plus since she’s seen him, though, Veronica notices that Tony has changed a lot, grown up a lot. And this thing that she finds herself doing with him is—great.

It’s low commitment without feeling cheap. It’s fun without being emotional. It’s easy. Tony lives two subway stops away from her—it’s _ridiculously_ easy. He’s actually closer to her work than _she_ is. 

More than that, she once again has someone to take along to a new restaurant, to see a movie with, someone who might theoretically care if she gets dressed up. Veronica is surprised to discover that she's been a little lonely in the last couple months. She scarcely noticed until now, but the sudden return of companionship casts everything in a new light. She even accepts a few invitations for after-work drinks with groups of her co-workers. Some of these people are awful, but a few aren't half bad, and they all get what it's like to call a fifty hour work week "vacation," so there's a sense of comradery there. _This is right_ , she thinks. She has finally started to give shape to her post-law-school life. She was floundering there for a minute (she'll be the first to admit it), not sure how to live when her schedule isn't ruled by a syllabus, when she isn't working towards a clearly marked objective. But now, she has someone who will order take-out with her. This is right.

Tony is tall, green eyed, and dark-haired: generically handsome, she remembers thinking when they first met, though her opinion of him has improved considerably since then. He works at a non-profit that specializes in education law, has a framed _Usual Suspects_ poster in his apartment, and can quote just about any Coen Brothers film from memory.

And, yes, once, towards the end of their third year at Columbia, when Veronica was dating Piz and Tony _knew_ that Veronica was dating Piz, they were studying late and he tried to kiss her.

She pulled back in time. Awkward apologies were exchanged, and maybe because they were so busy after that, or maybe because it was too uncomfortable, they didn’t see much of each other until—well, until now that they’re dating.

(She didn’t tell Piz, because there was no _reason_ to tell Piz, and it wasn’t like they had _actually_ kissed, and bringing it up would give the whole thing a lot more significance than Veronica wanted to give it.)

(But also, because, even when she was stammering and making her hasty retreat, filled with _I’m so sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, I have a boyfriend, Tony, I can’t do this,_ she was unpleasantly conscious of the fact that she had kind of a little bit maybe wanted to kiss Tony, too.)

(Which is so shitty, and it didn’t even make sense. She cared about Piz, probably loved him or—something, and she didn’t really think of Tony that way at the time. She couldn’t explain it, still doesn't care to try, and for a long time, she preferred not to think about Tony at all.)

Dating.

That’s what this is, Veronica thinks with satisfaction, when she dresses up to go to an engagement party for Tony’s cousin. He introduces her like, “This is Veronica,” she doesn’t leave things in his apartment, they have fun together, and they both work too much to get bogged down with titles and details.

“But what if one of you wants to date someone else?” their mutual friend, Andrea, asks, when they get brunch one Sunday in October. Andrea is shockingly old-fashioned for a nose-ringed New Yorker working for the Department of Environmental Protection; she has very little faith in the word _casual._ “Are you exclusive?”

This actually makes Veronica laugh. “It’s a miracle we have time to see _one_ person. If Tony managed to piece together enough time to date someone else on the side, I’d be more impressed that he’s learned to bi-locate than jealous.”

Andrea gives her a look that Veronica first reads as disbelieving, but later, she thinks might have been pitying.

There are a few other weird things about Veronica’s fun-loving, uncommitted commitment with Tony Arriaga. Not all the time, but occasionally something will happen that gives Veronica pause.

For instance: she doesn’t mention Tony to her dad. At all. Because if she did, he would ask if Tony is her boyfriend, and she can’t honestly “yes,” and she _really_ doesn’t think her father would be as understanding of, “It’s mostly physical and—you know, companionship,” as, say, Mac is. Mac thinks it’s great that she’s back in the dating game again; Wallace is vaguely supportive (though he _does_ ask if she’s seen Piz at all, too). And Logan—well, Logan doesn’t say anything about it.

Because she doesn’t tell Logan.

Their e-mails (more frequent—every other day now, and they Skype once too) don’t really _go there_ , and of course Veronica _could_ say “Hey, I’m seeing someone new,” but it doesn’t seem relevant.

So there.

Anyway, there’s still some lingering _something_ with Logan, and she doesn’t like to think about it, especially in relation to Tony. When she does, it’s... bad.

For instance: she’s been going out with Tony for just over two weeks (which is only two dates, their schedules being what they are), when they decide to see _Pulp Fiction_ at a throwback theater in Brooklyn. More than two weeks in, and they’ve kissed, made out a little even, but Veronica thinks maybe tonight they’ll go further. She’s not sure how much further, it’s not like she’s made a schedule, but she _did_ shave her legs.

So they’re watching the movie, and on screen, John Travolta has just emerged from an untimely trip to the restroom, when Veronica remembers something.

One time—God, this is the stupidest memory, but this one time, it must’ve been right at the beginning of Freshman year at Hearst, and Logan was getting dressed in his room at the Grand. Veronica was stretched out on his bed, and he was pulling on clothes, reciting all of Jules’s speech from the diner scene. Maybe they watched _Pulp Fiction_  the night before, maybe it just occurred to him to bust out the Samuel L. impersonation, Veronica can’t remember, but she can picture him clearly, standing in the warm morning light ( _her Logan_ ), shirtless as he fastened the button on his jeans and said, “The truth is... you’re the weak, and _I’m_ the tyranny of evil men.” Then, he pulled a t-shirt over his head and padded over to her on his bed, leaning down so that his face hovered inches from her, as he concluded, with all the sincerity of Logan in full-dramatist mode: “But I’m trying, Ringo. I’m trying _real hard_ to be the shepherd,” and pecked her on the lips.

“You know,” Veronica said in reply, knowledgeable as always, “that quote about the shepherd isn’t even from the Bible. They just made it up to sound Biblical.”

Logan went to his dresser, to get socks or something, but he glanced over his shoulder with a smirk and said, “I _did_ know.”

Veronica isn’t sure, but she thinks she probably laughed and said something along the lines of, “Oh, so you’ve read the Bible?”

“ _Read_ the Bible? They made a book of it?”

And just like that, ten years later, Veronica is stuck in that memory for the rest of the movie. She can’t shake it, and it ruins the night. She doesn’t go home with Tony; doesn’t even let him share a cab with her, she’s out of there so quick after the credits. She makes her excuses to him later, says she was sick, and even though, a few weeks later, they figure the “going further” thing out just fine, it’s moments like this that give Veronica her doubts. She doesn’t see _why_ this has to be a problem all of a sudden. For one thing, Logan is literally _on the other side of the world_ and most decidedly _not her boyfriend_ , and for another, she went nine years without him. She was all right _before._

(Eventually. Most of the time.)

But here’s the secret: Veronica _does_ know why this is a problem all of a sudden. There’s a reason she went cold-turkey off Logan Echolls when she left Neptune ten years ago. There are a whole host of other reasons she’s not doing the same thing now.

 

* * *

 

November, 2016

“Jerry Sacks died,” says her dad. They’re Skyping one Saturday afternoon in early November, and Veronica has one of those strange, disconnected thoughts that sometimes occurs in reaction to this kind of news—She thinks, _another one!_

It would be funny, but of course, it’s not.

“What happened?” she asks. Her dad looks tired; he looks _old_. There are the classic dark circles under his eyes, those have been around for years, and the scant hairs on the side of his head are completely white now—she’s noticed all of this before. But there’s something else about him that is more worn and run-down than Veronica is used to seeing. He’s sadder, somehow.

Of course, it might just be that his friend died.

“Routine bust—some kid dealing coke. He had a gun.” There’s more, Veronica senses it.

“They catch the guy?” she quizzes. Keith shakes his head. “What is it, Dad?”

He rubs his eyes with his fingers, then smooths the palm of his hand over his forehead and sighs. “Sacks was—he wanted to testify against Lamb. Against the whole department, all the crooked deals...”

Veronica is stunned, and then wonders why. “You think he was murdered by someone in the sheriff’s department? To silence him?”

Slowly, Keith nods. “He was scared. I wanted him to talk to me back when I was working Eli Navarro’s case, but he clammed up and wouldn’t do anything.” ( _Fortunately, Celeste Kane’s case against Weevil was so holey, even a Neptune jury couldn’t convict.)_ “Thursday, he comes to me with some information on a pay-off. Friday, he’s dead.”

For once, none of Veronica’s instincts are investigative. She doesn’t want her dad to tell her how they can link the so-called drug bust to Lamb; she doesn’t care about the pay-off Sacks was ratting out; she doesn’t want to know what her dad’s next move is to expose the corruption. For the past ten years, her father has maintained a heavy veil of silence on all things related to Neptune’s sordidness, and it’s finally paid off. Veronica doesn’t ask, she doesn’t care. All she wants to say on the matter is: “You need to be careful, Dad. If they killed one of their own, they’re definitely not going to have any problem taking you out.” And she’s impressed that her voice doesn’t shake, because that thought is so, _so_ much more than she can handle.

Keith smiles, all teasing affection. “I’m a big boy, Veronica, I can...”

“Dad, I’m serious.”

And she is. Completely. If anything happens to him...

But he doesn’t placate her, he’s never been the type. “Sweetheart, it’s _me_. I’m on their radar. That’s not going to change.”

 

* * *

 

Veronica feels like she’s in a scene from a movie, having cocktails at the Plaza with Max Farris, while they wait for a slightly tardy client, whose sizable retainer is the only thing stopping Farris from ditching the whole meeting. It’s a nice change, feeling like she’s in a scene from a movie that isn’t—well, a slasher flick. She wears a slinky black dress and skyscraper heels and real diamond earrings that she can afford to buy for herself.

“You’re from California, aren’t you?” asks Farris, in a welcome reprieve from his diatribe against their late guest. Veronica glares at him, and Farris smirks, guessing why. “All right, I won’t ask questions I already know the answer to.” He modifies it into a statement: “You’re from California.”

“Yep. But I can’t get you tickets to anything, so don’t ask.” (Which isn’t even true, because she actually _is_ a Californian who knew movie stars, but it’s the sort of stand-off-ish thing she’s supposed to say in this situation, she’s learned).

Farris ignores her witticisms and gets right to the point. “I’m moving to the Los Angeles office next year,” he tells her, and Veronica halts, finger poised on the rim of her glass (whiskey sour).

She recovers quickly and asks: “Why Los Angeles?”

“Change of scene, change of pace—anyway, they need me. The junior partners running things out there are a shit-show. God knows what Hewitt did with them while he was still in the game.” Veronica loves when the partners, or even the senior associates, gossip about one another. It’s endlessly entertaining, how adolescent it seems. Farris takes a long drink from his own glass (a Manhattan). “There would be a job for you there, if you were interested.”

Competing impulses seize Veronica then: a moment of unfettered enthusiasm cut short by reflexive hesitation. There are reasons to say “yes,” and reasons to say “no,” and dominating the latter category is a nebulous sense of doubt she can neither understand nor articulate. But she also knows that she wants this option to remain on the table, and so she nods.

“I could be,” she says. Then their client arrives and the meeting begins, but all Veronica can think for the next few minutes is, _Los Angeles. Two hours away from Neptune._

 —

“Yeah, but _California_?” Tony makes a face. Tony is from New Jersey. Veronica rolls her eyes and snatches one of the Chinese take-out containers from the table. Then she moves into what she calls her living room—but is really just the space with couches instead of kitchenware. Tony follows. “I thought you hated L.A., anyway?”

“I don’t hate L.A.” She doesn’t. She doesn’t love it, but she doesn’t hate it, and she’s certainly never discussed the topic with Tony. She has no idea where he’s getting this from.

“Oh. I must’ve been getting you mixed up with... everyone else on the planet.” He notices that Veronica is less than amused by this, and joins her on the couch, assuming a more serious tone. “But career-wise, is it a good opportunity?”

“Well, yeah, definitely. And I’d be _right there._ My dad would be a couple hours away. And— my best friend, my home town...” ( _Oh, yeah, because you just_ love _your hometown, Veronica.)_

“When do you have to decide?” Tony asks, while Veronica starts into her chow mein.

“I’ve got months. Farris hasn’t even officially announced it yet. He only talked to his wife about it last week.”

“Well...” Tony leans over and kisses her on the cheek, which sort of tickles because she’s chewing when it happens; “For purely selfish reasons, I hope you don’t go, but congratulations if you do.” And that, right there, is why things work so well with Tony. _No drama_. “Plus,” he opens his own carton of beef and brocolli, “long distance isn’t really _that_ bad in the twenty-first century. With Skype and cell phones and everything.”

Veronica stops chewing.

Long distance.

 _Right_.

* * *

The Thanksgiving trip is Mac’s idea. Since Veronica isn’t going to have any time off at Christmas, and her dad will be spending the holiday with her in New York, Mac and Wallace would be Veronica-less this year. Mac’s brilliant plan to prevent such a disaster is that she and Wallace fly out and "take in the Big Apple" for the four-day Thanksgiving weekend.

"Please don't call it 'the Big Apple,'" moans Veronica over the phone. "It hurts my ears." 

She meets them at the airport late Wednesday night, ready to enjoy her first real day off work since she started at the firm. She’s taking all of Thursday and Friday to spend with her friends, the plan being to get Mac and Wallace so drunk Friday night that she has a few hours to work from home while they nurse hangovers Saturday morning.

Tony is at his parents’ in Weehawken, and for all his talk of “long distance,” he made no mention of trying to visit with Veronica’s friends, and Veronica didn’t invite him. She isn’t going to have much time with them, and she has to make it count.

Thursday is everything that Veronica hopes it will be; the three of them sit on the couch and watch the parade until Wallace negotiates a change to football. They all cook and drink and listen to nineties rap on Pandora, and Veronica’s turkey is a success, even if it _is_ a little too big for just her and Wallace.

Much to Mac and Veronica’s chagrin, Wallace drags them along for a few hours of Black Friday shopping the next morning, although it comes at the price of a trip to the Met after lunch. When they’re all ready to drop from an afternoon of sightseeing, they return to Veronica’s apartment for a nap and clean up before dinner and drinks. As they ride the elevator up to her floor, Wallace stuffs his hands in his pockets and poses the innocent-enough question in a far too guilty tone: “So, uh, what did you have planned for tomorrow, V?”

Veronica notices Mac roll her eyes and shake her head, and she would ask why, but she has the feeling she’s about to find out. “I didn’t have any specific plans. I figured we’d do whatever you guys wanted to do...”

“Well,” Wallace continues with a hopeful smile, “We were thinking of grabbing a bite with Piznarski, maybe...”

“Oh, that’s perfect!” says Veronica quickly, and she can tell that both of them are taken aback by her genuine enthusiasm. “No, I mean, you guys should totally get lunch with him. I have _got_ to get a couple hours of work in, and you should see him while you’re here! I have no doubt he will take you to _the_ best brunch in Brook...” She realizes and stops. “Oh, no, yeah, I’m definitely not going with you guys though.”

“Was it really _that_ bad?” Wallace complains. “I bet Piz would _love_ to...”

“Oh, God, Wallace, give up on this dream already!” Mac half laughs, half groans as they step out of the elevator and start towards Veronica’s door. “The Veronica-Piz-house-in-the-suburbs fantasy will never be! You’re going to have to name your _own_ child ‘Wallace Jr.’”

Veronica laughs far too hard at that. “Wallace Jr.?”

“Well I _know_ if you and Piz had a kid, you’d _have_ to name him after me!” says Wallace, and Veronica honestly doesn’t know if he’s kidding or not, but she can’t stop laughing anyway. “I brought you two together!”

She sobers up. “Seriously, Wallace, you _need_ to have other goals.” She lets them into the apartment and continues: “But how about this: I will buy a cactus, and name the cactus Wallace Jr.”

“You name a cactus after me, and we are no longer friends, V. Mars.”

They’re still laughing about Wallace Jr. as they collapse on the couches, pleasantly fatigued. Veronica peels off her coat and gloves and settles down, ready to fall asleep right there on the loveseat, when the vibration of her phone against her leg brings an end to the peace. She checks the caller I.D. and groans. “It’s work, I gotta take this.”

She crosses to the far side of the loft, to the elevated corner of the room that serves as her bedroom. The elegant little partition there may be mostly decorative, but it gives at least a superficial sense of privacy. Here, she answers her phone to Grayson.

“This better be important,” she snaps, and he scoffs.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I interrupting your _vacation_? Some of us are _working,_ Mars.”

God, she hates Grayson. “What do you want?”

“Do you have the hardcopies of the...” She can tell he’s reading the name, “ _1986 Henry Davison testimony_... for the Pfizer case?”

“Yeah, Bournewell told me to take it home and review it this weekend. It’s on the drive, though.”

“Oh, I know it’s on the drive.” He sing-songs: “Bournewell wants the _original,_ and he’s getting drinks with Judge Montoya tonight so he’s got to have it before he leaves the office.”

“Fuck.” She hasn’t finished her marginalia, but if Bournewell wants the thing _two days_ before he requested it, he has no one to blame but himself. “I’ll send it over.”

“ _Under_ an hour,” Grayson warns.

“It’ll get there when it gets there.”

Veronica hangs up without a goodbye and scrolls through her contacts to the bike delivery service of her choice. “I’ll be right with you guys,” she calls to Mac and Wallace on the other side of the divider. “Minor fire to put out!”

Wallace gives a semi-conscious grunt in response, and Mac remarks, “How unusual for you!”

“It’ll be about forty-five minutes,” says the lady from the bike messenger service over the phone. “All of our people are out on delivery, and we’re understaffed, with the holiday...”

Veronica _thank-you-anyways_ the woman and hangs up. She gathers up the documents she needs from where they sit on her bedside table and sticks them in a large manila envelope, which she then stuffs into her briefcase. She takes a deep breath, asks the New York City traffic gods to give her luck, and steps out toward the living room.

“All right, change of plans,” she says to Mac and Wallace, joining them long enough to collect her coat and gloves from the couch. “I have to run something over to work, so I’m going to do that while you two nap. I will be back in an hour _tops_.”

“Who has to work the day after Thanksgiving?” complains Wallace, but Mac swats his arm.

“You don’t understand,” she tells him, while Veronica shrugs into her coat; “I had to trade my money, my soul, my dignity, and _almost my body_ to get this day off. Yesterday, when I told you I was reading the Onion? I was reviewing a software proposal.”

“It’s a sad, sad world...”

“Okay, well you two can debate the shortcomings of corporate life,” Veronica interjects, grabbing her hat and keys from the table by the door; “I’ll be back soon.” She holds up her index finger. “ _One hour.”_

“We’ll be here,” Mac assures her.

Grayson is pacing their office when Veronica arrives and hands him the folder. He whips out the documents immediately and scatters them across his desk, as though checking it’s all there, and Veronica rolls her eyes.

“ _You’re welcome_.”

Grayson is still hunched over his desk, but he glances up long enough to glare at her. “I’m sorry, some of us are trying to do our jobs,” he grumbles. “You know, I’m working _solos_. I’ve had interest from half a dozen other firms—Truman-Mann wants me, did you know that, and Bournewell still has me running around doing errands for him like I’m some kind of 1L intern...”

“Oh, poor you.” Veronica turns to leave, but doesn’t make it to the door before—

“Hey, you might be satisfied riding Farris’s coattails and having him hold your hand through every case, but I actually want a career. I went to _Princeton_ for fuck’s sake...”

Veronica wheels around; “Oh my God, did you? I had no idea! You have _never_ mentioned this before!”

“Fuck off.”

“And Farris doesn’t hold my hand,” she adds, just for merit. “I’ve had solos...”

“I’m not talking about ambulance chasing charity cases, Mars. I’m talking real money. Important cases.”

Grayson is ruining her Mac-and-Wallace-induced good mood, so Veronica decides to make her exit before she does something regrettable like... push him out the window. Actually, that sounds pretty nice right now.

“And hey, we can’t all fall back on porn careers,” he calls after her.

They don’t hurt as much as they used to, comments like that. She’s put the not-quite sex tape in her past and learned to let things go. She’s in control now. Unruffled.

But she’s tired, too. It’s been an exhausting day, week, year, and she feels the control slipping. She really, really has to get out of here, there’s a window right there, just prime for the pushing...

Her voice is steady when she replies, over her shoulder: “I advise you to tread lightly, Grayson.”

He’s laughing when she leaves the office. “Or what, Legally Blonde, you’ll sic your Chihuahua on me?”

_Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you_

She’s shaking, focusing on getting the hell out of there before—before something happens, she doesn’t know what, but she is so on edge suddenly. She has to let this go, she has to ignore it. Sometimes people are just assholes, _sometimes they just suck and there’s nothing you can do about it._ Her vision is blurred and she travels on autopilot towards the elevators, so that she almost crashes into someone emerging from one of the offices. It turns out to be Bournewell, she learns, when he starts speaking to her.

“...ing there, Mars...”

Veronica blinks, nods along to whatever he said, it doesn’t matter.

“You brought those documents?”

This she catches, and she nods again. “Grayson has them,” she says, making eye contact with Bournewell’s shoulder. Her voice is strange, the inflection so forced, like the voice on her phone’s GPS, trying to sound like a real person.

Bournewell huffs. “I really needed them an hour ago. Disappearing like that with case files is—unprofessional. And sloppy. Don’t do it again.”

A new bubble of rage swells up in Veronica’s chest, then; like he didn’t _know_ she would have the documents, like he didn’t _specifically tell her to take them home for the weekend_...

She nods mutely and sidesteps Bournewell even before she’s dismissed. The elevator she scrambles into is half full, and Veronica fights—heroically—to keep her face impassive.

_Just make it home. Just make it to your apartment. Just keep it together until you’re home._

When Veronica turns the key in the lock of her apartment and opens the door, Mac and Wallace—on the couch—stop talking abruptly. She notices in a detached sort of way, except she’s too distracted by their presence because— _shit,_ she actually forgot they were here. It’s disorienting, and then a little frightening, that she would miss something like that. She blinks several times, adjusts, tries to settle on a facial expression that is suitable to the moment— _smile, Veronica, your friends are here—_ and of course they notice.

“You okay, V?” asks Wallace, hopping up from the couch. He and Mac are both holding beers, the only indication that they’ve moved since Veronica left, close to ninety minutes ago. She forgets to lie for half a second.

“I—no.” But she really can’t explain this. She’s too angry, or tired, maybe, she can’t even tell the difference, but it’s a herculean effort to take off her coat and say the words: “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You sure? ‘Cause you look...”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” And she knows it comes out louder than intended, knows that she just snapped at two people she adores, but she doesn’t realize quite how loud and angry it must have sounded until there’s silence again, until she registers the looks of shock on Mac and Wallace’s faces. The rage bubble in her chest wilts pathetically until it’s just a sad little lump of guilt. “I’m sorry,” she apologizes, eyes closed, then she opens them again to see her friends looking anywhere that isn’t at their hostess. “Really, I’m… work. It sucks. Shocker, I know, I’m really sorry.”

She is, too. _God_.

“It’s fine, Veronica,” says Mac with a tight smile.

Veronica breathes. “Sorry,” she says again. “I’m just gonna...” She waves at the bathroom and all three of them nod before Veronica makes her quick retreat. She doesn’t actually need to use the bathroom, it’s just the only enclosed space in the apartment that isn’t a part of this room, and she needs to be alone for two seconds.

In the bathroom, she turns on the faucet for background noise and leans her forehead against the closed door.

_Keep it together, just keep it together. You’re fine. Everything is fine. Just keep it together._

But then she hears Wallace say something—a few sentences she can’t make out, while her ears adjust to the low volume, and then, more clearly: “ _That_ is not happening.” She doesn’t hear Mac reply, but figures a look must’ve been exchanged, because Wallace continues, “We have to call Piz,” he declares, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“O-kay?” Mac is bewildered. “I thought we were going to see him tomorrow anyway, so...”

“Not for us!” Like Mac is a complete idiot for not reading this. “For _V_. Look at the girl, she’s...” He trails off, but maybe he gestures or something for Mac to understand.

“Cut her some slack, she had to go into work and it was obviously shitty.”

“I’m not just talking about _that_. This whole trip, she’s been weird. She’s been—just look at her. I mean, _right?_ We should call Piz to just check up on...”

For Veronica, it’s like a punch in the gut. She catches her reflection in the bathroom mirror and makes a quick study of her face. She’s _what,_ exactly? What does Wallace see that is wrong with her? She’s been all smiles and jokes and fun, she’s been enjoying herself, been pleasant and helpful... the last hour-and-a-half excluded, obviously. God, what could he possibly see that is so wrong with her? She’s a little drained, maybe, but she hasn’t been short on energy with her two visitors. They’ve run around non-stop today, and she has more than kept up—led the way, even, kept Mac pumped while Wallace dragged them through store after store. She let Wallace take pictures with her, even though she hadn’t really felt like it, felt up to it at all. Flirted with their waiter at lunch and got them a free appetizer. Been a good friend, been nice and cheerful and down for whatever. Done it all with banter and a smile, always a willing participant, most of the time the ringleader of this little circus.

She is exhausted— _works so hard_ —and she is killing herself trying to show these two a good time, and Wallace has the—the nerve to suggest that something is wrong with her! Doesn’t he know how rare her days off are? That she could be spending them doing something that _she_ wants to do, like... well, honestly, she shouldn’t even be taking days off in the first place.

There are some footsteps from the main room, and then Mac: “Don’t you _dare_ tell Piz about this,” strikingly firm. “Veronica just told you she doesn’t want to see him.”

“MacKenzie, look at the girl, she’s...”

“Overworked and stressed.” Practical, sensible, _thank-you, Mac._ “The last thing she needs is you calling up her ex and telling him about it.”

“You wanna tell me there’s nothing wrong with V right now?” Wallace is disbelieving, and Mac’s answering hesitation worries Veronica a little. She continues to analyze her own face in the mirror; she’s a little pale, sure, but it’s November (the white bulb of the bathroom light washes her out even more), and that might make her look a little... a little worn. And she’s lost a few pounds since the last time she saw them—mostly because she doesn’t always have time to eat—but it’s not like she’s consumptive or anything. And her hair, she has no problem admitting, looks absolutely great. (It _should_ , considering the price of the angled long-bob she indulged in last week.) So she could use a massage, sure, but she doesn’t look _that_ bad, does she? What are these two seeing that she’s missing?

“Well so what?” Mac tries to whisper—they really have no idea how sound travels, do they?—and is scathing with the next: “You think just because a woman’s stressed she needs a boyfriend to fix her?”

“I didn’t say...”

“Oh, sure.”

Veronica has never loved Mac more.

“She needs something to—mellow her out,” Wallace grumbles at length, and before Veronica’s temper can even flare up at that, she hears Mac sigh. She realizes, suddenly, that there’s something familiar in Mac’s tone sometimes, when they’re talking on the phone and her friend’s sentences are clipped, not like she’s angry, but like she can’t locate the strength to say any more. Sometimes, even more telling, she’ll have a lot to say; a list of stories that Veronica can tell she’s readied in anticipation of the phone call, in anticipation of answering the question: “So how are you?” Sometimes—just sometimes, but now is one of those times—Veronica believes Mac when she says that she hates working for Kane Software.

“Mellow isn’t her problem,” says Mac. “Just let it be.”

Veronica splashes water over her face and turns off the faucet. _This is stupid. This is ridiculous. Everything is fine._

She snapped at them, and she doesn’t usually snap at them, so they’re concerned. She’s not really mad at them, she’s mad at Grayson and the assholes at work, and she took it out on them. It's thrown them all a little, but it’s fine. She’ll be better now. She needs to pull herself together and be a good friend, be a good hostess. She just needs to be better (brighter, shinier, happier). She can do this.

—

“God, Walllace, _when_ will you join the rest of us in the twenty-first century?” complains Mac, as Wallace struggles to get the airline app to work on his phone. “You just put in the flight number and you can check in... that’s not even our airline!”

They’re all at the airport Sunday night, Mac holding her boarding pass and Wallace decidedly _not_. The space that Mac and Wallace’s Saturday brunch with Piz afforded them all was a huge blessing and served to ease the tensions, so that Saturday afternoon and the whole of Sunday passed as pleasantly as Thursday had. Veronica is sorry to see them go—sorry, sad, miserable about it, even. There’s a stirring unease in the pit of her stomach as she watches them prepare to board their flight together.

“You know what, maybe _I_ like a personal touch,” Wallace protests, and Mac scoffs. “I’m going to check in with that nice lady over there...” He points to the scowling airport employee behind the check-in counter. “People don’t talk to each other anymore. You all are just _ruled_ by technology...”

Mac rolls her eyes as Wallace wheels his suitcase away from them; “Okay, grandma, I just hope you wore your orthopedics so you don’t hurt your back in that line.”

“The young people will be waiting over here!” Veronica adds, and Wallace makes a face at them, but he’s laughing—they all are. There’s been a lot of laughter this trip, even after the non-fight. Veronica’s going to miss that.

She strolls with Mac closer to the security line, and Veronica debates saying something about what she overheard from her bathroom. This is the first time she’s been alone with either of them since _the incident_ , and it occurs to her that she _could_ say something, if it’s just Mac. She couldn’t take on both of them at once, but maybe, if it’s just one of them—

“What’s wrong with me anyway?” she asks abruptly, and Mac goes wide-eyed.

“Like, generally...?”

Veronica collects herself, contextualizes: “I heard you when I was in the bathroom on Friday, you and Wallace. He said I... looked... bad.” It suddenly sounds silly.

“I _knew_ you could hear.” Mac casts a resentful look in the general direction of the oblivious Wallace and crosses her arms. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Wallace was just overreacting.”

“Right?" She watches the toe of her boot draw circles in the blue berber carpet. "I mean I know I was a bitch, but he was acting like I’m—dying or something.”

“Maybe,” Mac begins awkwardly, “maybe it seems like you could be a little... depressed?”

“Depressed?” Veronica looks up. “I’m not depressed. I don’t have _time_ to be depressed.”

Her friend nods quickly. “Yeah, okay,” she says, too eagerly, like she wants it to be true, or maybe just wants to put an end to the conversation. “I’m sorry if this trip was badly timed or...”

“No! No, oh God, no, I’m—I’m so glad you guys came.”

“Me too,” says Mac.

They’re quiet for a moment, staring at the ground. Neither of them is any good at this; they have that in common. Mac has relieved some of her worries about the whole thing, but there remains one item that Veronica can’t quite let go...

“Is it my _make-up_ or something?”

“What?”

“Wallace said...”

“Sweet Jesus, Mars, he didn't mean anything. Are you _really_ trying to make me tell you you’re pretty right now? Because of all the requests over all these years, I might actually be drawing the line here.”

“I just...”

“No, no, no. You want reassurance, you ask one of those dude-bros harassing you for your number last night, that is _not_ my department. I am technical support and hardware. Q doesn’t have to put up with this shit— _c’mon_.”

So they’re laughing again by the time Wallace rejoins them, brandishing a boarding pass, and all too soon, Mac and Wallace walk through security and disappear back to their lives on the other side of the country.

On the expensive cab ride home, Veronica stares through the car window at the city lights as they appear and change and disappear, bright and anonymous. There’s a come-down, for sure, from the emotional high of having her two best friends here and then adjusting to their sudden absence, but all in all, Veronica is okay. There's even a whisper of ease, of relief in her consciousness tonight. This is simpler, somehow. She leans her head against the cool glass window and her body relaxes. The cab driver won’t notice if she’s not bright and shiny and happy. It’s New York: he won’t even expect her to smile politely when she pays him and says goodnight.

 

* * *

 

December 2016

The Friday after Mac and Wallace leave, Veronica and Tony have eight o’clock dinner reservations at a chichi restaurant on the Upper Westside. Of course, Veronica is stuck at the office, running late, but she prepared for this possibility ( _inevitability, who are you kidding, Mars?_ ) and brought a change of clothes to work with her. Farris's ancient assistant Linda is always amenable to a little subterfuge, and she allows Veronica to use their absent boss' private bathroom as a changing room. Veronica applies the finishing touches to what she knows is an exceptional ensemble, pinning in dangly earrings, when her phone on the marble countertop beeps—the e-mail alert. She stops to check it.

> _Government Issue Thanksgiving ‘Turkey’ Rations Update III: Six Dead, Five Wounded, Outlook Bleak_

Veronica grins at the thoroughly Logan subject-line and clicks through to read the message.

> _Despite the recent tragedy that befell us vis-à-vis ill-advised attempts to replicate happy holiday memories in a hundred-and-sixteen-ton tuna can (it’s been two months, I’m honestly doubting I ever had that lovin' feeling' to begin with), there is some good news to be had. Namely, early return!_
> 
> _Youtube is about to be up a couple hundred phone captured videos titled ‘Sailor Surprises Family in Time for Christmas!’ as we’re now set to dock on Christmas-Eve-Eve. Pit-Stop has an elaborate Hallmark-movie reunion planned for his wife. I’ve promised to option the whole story to Trina with the stipulation that Ryan Gosling play me. Not just because of our shared classic good-looks, but because I believe only Gosling can really capture my gritty intensity._

Veronica’s heart is going a mile a minute as she rereads to make sure she understood correctly. And, yes, Logan is coming home a whole two weeks early. December twenty-third ( _three weeks from today!_ she finds, when she checks the calendar on her phone). She’s overwhelmed by a strange cocktail of emotions. There’s joy and relief, of course, that Logan will be back on solid, U.S. ground—safe and sound—that much sooner. Excitement—she’ll be able to talk to him again. And disappointment, regret, that she’s not going home to Neptune for Christmas this year. _Dammit_ , if only she’d known sooner, she might have been able to work something out... but now her dad already has his plane ticket. Well, he could change it, couldn’t he? But she would only have two days at the most, and that wouldn’t be enough time for—anything, really. Her last trip to Neptune was only supposed to last two days, too, and look how that turned out.

Then she wonders what Logan will be doing for Christmas, and that just makes her sad, the likelihood that he could be alone. She thinks wildly, _he should come to New York!_ but remembers that this is pretty much impossible because one, her dad will be there, and two, Tony.

 _Tony_.

Tony, who she is supposed to meet in about two minutes.

She gathers up her belongings and erases all traces of her presence in her boss’s bathroom, mentally composing the reply she’ll send to Logan in the cab.

> _Subject: Timothy Olyphant or no dice_
> 
> _Bummed I won’t be in California for Christmas—but glad you’ll be back in time for the holiday. Your squad must be ecstatic._
> 
> _There_ is _a chance I might be on the west coast sometime next year, though. My boss is planning on transferring to the L.A. office of the practice and he said there would be a job if I wanted one. Nothing is for sure yet, and I don’t even know if I would want to leave New York, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about._

Logan is now the first Californian that Veronica has told about the possibility that she could relocate to Los Angeles. She didn’t mention it to Mac or Wallace and she’s avoiding telling her father, in case something goes wrong. She doesn’t want to get his hopes up.

But also, she genuinely doesn’t know if she _wants_ to take a job in L.A. Without really understanding why, Veronica wonders if she would be able to do this job anywhere besides New York—especially somewhere so close to home. But she tells Logan about it anyway, puts it out there, makes it real, because as uncertain as she is about whether she wants to take the job, just now, the idea of being in L.A.— _just a couple hours out_ —sounds like a dream come true.

 —

“You look beautiful,” Tony gushes when Veronica meets him at the restaurant (only twenty minutes late). She smiles her appreciation as she takes her seat and helps herself to the red wine that Tony has already ordered for them. She’s in form-fitting royal purple tonight, the skyscraper stilettos strapped on once again, and it was worth it, changing at work like that because, well, _a girl likes to be told_.

Pleasantries are exchanged, and they entertain each other through the appetizers with stories of their respective Thanksgivings. Veronica gives the more agreeable highlights of her visit with her friends (and diligently suppresses all thoughts of Logan and Logan’s imminent return), and Tony makes her laugh with anecdotes of his curmudgeonly _nonna_. It’s all very nice.

But then, halfway through the main course (linguine and clams for Veronica, obscenely portioned chicken cacciatore for Tony), Veronica finds herself asking a question that’s been nagging at her for a few weeks now. She twists a spiral of pasta around her fork (it's undercooked, she's barely touched it) and begins with, “Can I ask you something?”

“I think you just did.” He must interpret her continued eye contact with the clams as irritation (though it’s really impatience, she tells him, in a purely hypothetical debate they’re not even having) and continues, soberly: “What’s up?”

“You did an internship at Sullivan & Cromwell.” Not a question, so she presses on before he can make a joke she doesn’t have the energy to roll her eyes at, “Why didn’t you... why did you change your focus? Why didn't you apply to a big firm... corporate litigation, all that?"

“Oh. Well.” Tony sits back and considers the question. “I didn't think it would be a good fit. I didn’t care for the corporate environment.” Veronica glances up at him, and he’s very still, holding his wine glass so the liquid inside doesn’t even slosh, he’s so composed. “I wouldn’t have been any good at it.”

“What do you mean?”

“In my experience there, it was so competitive. Everyone had an angle, even with their own coworkers. I’m not built to always be playing the game, so I would have washed in the first year.” Veronica nods and thinks of Amrit. It feels like a judgment, even if Tony doesn’t mean to sound critical. But he's intuitive, he notices. “ _You_ , on the other hand, are brilliant at it. When I heard you got Preston, Farris, I was... so relieved.”

That throws her. “ _Relieved_?”

“Well, yeah.” He sets down his glass and leans forward. “You were one of the most impressive people in our class. You were right there at the top, and all our professors were in love with you. I...” He chuckles, an awkward exhale, but he can’t get out of it now, “I was just glad you were doing something amazing with your degree. Let’s face it: Preston, Farris & Hewitt, and the cases you’ve worked: you’ve pretty much _won_ law school. Except for that one girl in our year—with the weird name, who’s at Harvard now, you beat them all.”

“Okay, but...” Veronica crosses her arms over the edge of the table, “ _Relieved_?”

Another uncomfortable chuckle. “Well, after we graduated and I heard you weren’t applying for jobs right away, I was a little concerned that you would end up just marrying your boyfriend and disappearing to Westchester.”

“ _What_  now?”

_And God, why is everyone trying to sequester her to the suburbs with Piz and a minivan?_

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!” Tony adds quickly. “But you could do so much more! You were always so much of a go-getter in school, it was weird to me that you weren’t first in line for some prestigious, high-paying job. I’m sure I was probably bitter at the time, after what happened with us...” Veronica inhales sharply and sits back; _guilt, guilt, guilt_ —they haven’t talked about his almost kissing her and she really does _not_ want to—“So what do I know? Anyway, you didn’t take that path, and I’m glad. It’s encouraging. It’s inspiring, in a way, that even the big corporate firms will still hire one of the good guys.”

Then, Veronica feels a rush of warmth towards Tony. _What a save. S_ he was thinking she’d be storming out of this meal in a fury. She smiles at him and if she doesn’t say ‘thank-you,’ she means it.

That’s it. Inspirational. Encouraging. _She’s one of the good guys_.

 —

It’s late, the bedroom is completely dark, and Veronica is naked, but between the blankets and the boy wrapped around her, she’s delightfully warm.

The boy in question is asleep, at least until he’s not, because his hand moves forward from its resting place on her hip and dips down across the front of her thigh. Instinctively, Veronica shifts her legs to give him better access. He nuzzles her hair, kisses her neck at the pulse point, and he’s muttering something over her skin, his breath hot. When Veronica inhales, she realizes that it’s Logan. Logan’s mumbling voice, Logan’s long, lovely fingers moving down, beginning to play with her.

Of course it’s Logan, who else would it be?

But then it can’t be. She tries to remember _why_ it can’t be Logan— _oh, that’s right, he’s on the other side of the world just now_ —and she thinks or senses that this must be a dream. She turns to see him and yes: Logan’s brown eyes, Logan’s smirk—which she twists her head to kiss, hard. If this is a dream, she might as well.

He responds, pushing his tongue into her mouth and she sucks hard, pulls him closer and leans into him so that she’s almost on her back. His fingers still brush over her clit, a rhythm developing, and she’s hot all over—an intense, frenetic heat she can almost _see_ radiating from her skin, exhaled in the gasping breaths they take. Inside of her too, low and trembling and building.

 _I miss you,_ Logan breaths against her lips when they break apart. He pulls his fingers away, long enough to grab her hips and align them just so. The two of them fit together well like this, Veronica remembers. She swallows hard in anticipation.

She’s on her side again, her back to his chest, but she reaches her arm around blindly so she can touch his face, her fingertips brushing his lips then gliding along his cheekbones to the back of his head, where she closes her fingers tight around a fistful of his hair. It’s so short now her nails scratch sharply against his scalp, and that’s when he pushes up into her.

Slowly at first, their hips roll together a few times. This feeling she remembers, soaking and sensitive, filled up—how he fucks into her at just that angle that sends waves of pleasure through her body.  _Harder_ , she thinks, and this  _must_ be a dream, because Logan reads her mind and complies. Harder, harder, and faster, and his hand spreads over her hip and then slips lower between her thighs again.

She continues to grasp his hair in her hand, her nails digging into his skull as she pulls him closer and urges him on—more, more, more. Her other hand clutches at the bedsheets and she’s using this as leverage, so she can meet him, grind against him. She’s already close, she just needs a little more.

Logan is speaking again. She doesn’t exactly understand the words, but she knows it’s dirty, what he’s saying into her shoulder, and it heats her blood. _Miss you_ , she barely manages to gasp out. _Missyouneedyouplease._

He tells her to come: urges, coaxes, begs, or commands, she doesn’t know, maybe all of them, and she wants to—she’s _right there, so close, right on the edge,_ if only she could let go. All her muscles clench around this sensation, and just as it begins, just as she feels the first vibrations of her orgasm start to grow and ripple through her, the rocking of the bed wakes her.

Her (real life, not dream) hips are bucking against—nothing, and Veronica’s eyes flutter open. She’s not naked, she’s wearing pajamas. Pajamas that don’t belong to her... much like the bed she’s in, and _fuck_. _Fuck fuck and fuck._

She squeezes her legs together to alleviate the pressure (still so fucking turned on _fuck_ )and her face is burning with embarrassment. She can’t even work up the courage to turn and see if she’s woken the owner of the bed—mercifully far enough on the other side of it that they don’t touch. Instead, she lies motionless and silent (even holds her breath) until she decides that Tony’s stillness and consistent, light snores mean that she hasn’t woken him.

There’s a clock on his side of the bed that Veronica doesn’t have the nerve to check, but the room is pitch black, as is the sliver of sky peaking in through the blinds, so she figures it’s both too late and too early to exit reasonably.

She doesn’t go back to sleep. She watches the small slit of night sky in the window, until it pales into a misty blue-grey. Before Tony wakes up, she climbs carefully out of bed, dresses, and makes her escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really don't know how I deluded myself into thinking I could make this (and the conclusion) one chapter. As soon as I started editing, throw-away lines were turning into critical scenes, and everything just got so out of hand. So four parts it is! And part four will be along soon!


	4. This Is War, So I Fight

December is rough.

Work is rough, the weather is rough, the week-point-five of dodging Tony after her awkward sleepover is rough.

Veronica is incredibly ready for her dad’s scheduled two-day visit and an entire weekend off work, and as it approaches, she spends her intermittent hours preparing the apartment—holly garland, tinsel, the whole shebang. She even starts baking for the occasion, which amuses Tony to no end (“You just don’t strike me as a _baker_!”), but fills the loft with a variety of delicious, warm smells that remind Veronica of Christmases past: good, bad, and decidedly mixed.

On the twenty-second, she listens to Christmas music and sets up a miniature tree on the kitchen counter. She’s hanging the specially purchased mini ornaments, while Dean Martin’s voice on the stereo reminds her that it’s a marshmallow world, when her phone rings. The caller I.D. makes her smile.

“We’re having ham for Christmas dinner, and before you say it, I know how you feel about beef, but they were all out at the store and I am  _not_ getting back in those lines. You have not feared for your life until you’ve thrown down for a cash register with a New Yorker at Christmas,” Veronica says, very quickly, in lieu of _hello_.

Her dad, on the other hand, does not shirk custom so cavalierly. He sighs. “Hello, sweetheart, and is that how I taught you to answer a phone?”

“Right, sorry.” She clears her throat and assumes a customer-service-friendly voice: “Mars Investigations, this is Veronica. When he gets the honey-pot, we get the money shot, how can I help you?”

“That sense of humor you didn’t get from me either.”

“Mostly it was Eddie Murphy _Raw_ , actually, but don’t tell the social worker.” Keith chuckles, but it’s weak. Veronica senses that something is afoot and that she won’t like it. “What’s up, Dad?”

“Good news first or bad?”

Yep, she knows where this is going. She turns the volume on Dean Martin way down. “Spill the beans, old man, time’s a-wasting.”

“We got a lead on Aurora Scott,” he tells her, and that, Veronica was _not_ expecting. After her dad tracked down Tanner Scott for Lianne over the summer, Aurora remained frustratingly missing. All the worse for Tanner, as he claimed that his adolescent daughter made off with the money _he_ was accused of taking... a story that no one, with the possible exception of Keith Mars, really bought. The investigation of Tanner’s probable involvement with his daughter’s disappearance took the main stage after Keith found him and dragged him back to California, but that’s the sheriff’s problem now. Keith has been working to locate anything that might remain of Aurora. Veronica has her suspicions as to his motives (getting Lianne out of another jam, most likely), but any case that doesn’t involve the Neptune sheriff’s department and the drastic measures they take to silence whispers about corruption is just fine by her. Except, “It looks like Scott _might_ be telling the truth about Aurora being alive and in hiding. And I have to go down to Mexico.”

Veronica closes her eyes. “Of course you do.”

“It might be a false alarm—I could be back in time, I don’t know, honey, I will do everything in my power to be back by Christmas, but if this girl is alive...”

“I know, Dad.” She does. Really. But it sucks. “I understand.”

“I am _so_ sorry, I will make it up to you, I promise...”

“I know.”

“Listen, honey, I got to go—the temp is supposed to be booking me on a flight, but I don’t trust him to get...”

“You go. Call me when you land.” (Which is a strange thing to say. He doesn’t have to call her when he lands anymore.)

“I will,” says her dad anyway. “I love you, Veronica.”

“Mhm, love you too. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Veronica hangs up and leans over the counter with her forearms flat on the tile surface. The room is quiet for a moment, and then, very faint in the background, hums the nearly-muted Christmas album on the stereo. She nearly dives to switch off _I’ll Be Home for Christmas._

* * *

It’s shocking to Veronica how well she handles the disappointment of her father’s cancellation. She doesn’t cry or silently rage at Lianne for involving them in her drama. She doesn’t even stop baking. She musters up a little resentment, but her mood stays pretty level, all things considered, and she thinks that it’s probably a sign of maturity. Or something.

Anyway, now she won’t have to play hostess or wash the guest sheets or drag herself through the cold, snowy streets on tourist’s errands all weekend. She can sleep late on Sunday and watch all the claymation Christmas movies on Netflix.

Tony is supposed to accompany her to Max Farris’s Christmas party on Friday night, the twenty-third, and when they talk on the phone to confirm the details, she doesn’t mention her dad’s change of plans. She’s half afraid he’ll invite her out to New Jersey for the holidays, and if Veronica thought spending the holiday with her own family would be slightly taxing, spending it with someone else’s sounds like an absolute nightmare

Preston, Farris & Hewitt holds the company Christmas party that afternoon, so Veronica is able to sneak out a little early, shower, and prepare for Farris’s more elegant dinner gathering that evening.

Logan is supposed to come home today, too, and she’s not expecting him to call, _per se_ , but she cranks up the volume on her cell ring tone while she’s in the shower just in case anyone tries to get a hold of her.

Veronica has always had a gift for dressing for an occasion, and she puts particular care into her look this evening. Maybe because she’s been phoning in the work ensembles for, oh, the last six months (black skirt/white blouse, _done_ ; grey skirt/green blouse, _done,_ brown slacks/cream blouse, _done_ ), but she takes an inordinate amount of pleasure in these opportunities to mix things up, to dress like someone else.

 _Swanky-Christmas-Party-Attending Veronica_ wears silver satin: a chic, choker _-_ collar sheath dress that reaches her toes and, Veronica thinks, gives her a little height. The four-inch heels serve that cause as well. Running her fingers through her jewelry box, Veronica finds a gaudy old ring that she hasn’t worn in years, but has just circled back into style and would probably be categorized as a dangerous weapon in twenty-five states. She slips it onto her middle finger and likes the way it catches the light as she rummages about for earrings. She lands on a pair of drop earrings, each one a single long rope of sterling silver that hangs almost to her shoulders.

All along, she furtively checks her phone (though she doesn’t know who is supposed to be judging her for this—the Christmas tree?).

She applies her make-up and checks her phone; combs though her short hair and checks her phone; pins it up on one side with a glittering, spidery black clip, and checks her phone. By quarter to seven, she looks perfect—even Wallace couldn’t say she looks anything but lovely tonight—and she has to charge her severely drained phone battery.

Tony buzzes up to her room at exactly seven, prompt as ever, and Veronica presses the button to let him in downstairs. No sooner has she done so, then she hears the too-loud chime of her cell, and she jogs across the room to answer it—no easy feat in a full-length pencil skirt and heels. And _of course_...

“Has anyone ever told you that you have terrible timing, Lieutenant Echolls?” she demands. “I literally have thirty seconds.”  

“Hot date?” asks Logan, and Veronica more than kind of wants to kick off her shoes and spend the evening on the couch with snickerdoodles and cocoa and Logan’s voice.

She doesn’t exactly lie: “My boss’s Christmas party.”

“Champagne from Champagne and whipped salmon mousse on crackers, enjoyed in the company of your nearest and dearest coworkers?”

“I won’t even _look_ at mousse that _isn’t_ whipped and salmon-y.”

“See, I could never go to a party like that. All those lawyers in one room? Someone would try to charge me with something. Or worse—represent me.”

“With all those lawyers in one room, you’d probably be guilty.”

“I’d just be the red-herring. Miss Marple would soon learn that the butler did it.”

She hears footsteps outside her door just before the knock, and _damn Logan’s poor timing._ “Unfortunately, I really do have to go. What are you doing tomorrow? Will you have time to talk?”

“I might be able to fit you in between _White Christmas_ and _The Year Without Santa Claus_ , but I make no promises.”

Veronica starts towards her door. “Your bad-boy cred it _so_ shot.”

“Right. I mean, between shop-lifting and vandalism.”

 “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Enjoy your party.”

“I will. Bye.” She remembers just as she’s about to hang up: “Oh, wait!” and she pauses to make sure he hasn’t already gone.

“Yeah?”

“Welcome home.”

It sounds like he’s smiling. He’s probably smiling. “Thanks.”

Veronica hangs up and answers the door.

—

The Farrises’ penthouse on East 69th is—large. That’s what Veronica keeps thinking, as Mrs. Farris greets her at the door and graciously invites Veronica and Tony inside. Veronica remembers some rumor Grayson told her, about Farris’s wife being a Vanderbilt or a Kennedy cousin or something, and if nothing else, the square footage of this apartment would suggest that maybe Grayson has some correct information for once.

“Call me Bernadette,” Mrs. Farris says, and she takes their coats herself.

Veronica has attended high-end parties before, but Lynn Echolls’s Christmas parties were nothing like this (may she rest in whatever peace there is). The lights in the main room are dim, a warm, romantic glow, and there is a single large Christmas tree in the corner, which, yes, looks like Martha Stewart herself decorated it, but that’s it. No snow machines and Santas and hovering wait-staff. The food, the music, the decorations are all subtle and elegant. There are servers, but they glide about almost invisibly, and Veronica feels as though she only ever spots them out of the corner of her eye—disappearing through a door or around a corner, whisking unsightliness away on a silver tray. _More of a Celeste Kane party, then,_ Veronica thinks, but she was so rarely invited to any of those—the most memorable one, she crashed.

When Veronica tells Bernadette Farris that everything looks lovely, she isn’t just being polite.

Max Farris finds her after a few minutes of chit-chat with someone Veronica _thinks_ works on the sixteenth floor. After brusquely gripping Tony’s hand and promptly forgetting that he exists (which ruffles Tony a little), their host guides them along to another part of the room.

“You’ll enjoy this,” Farris mutters conspiratorially. Veronica guesses that he’s probably had a few glasses of champagne already. His cheeks are flushed and there’s a boisterous swagger to his walk—it's endearing and a bit hilarious. He brings them up to an elderly man standing by himself near the tree. The guy must be well into his eighties, with substantial jowls mostly smothering his polka-dotted bow-tie. He is altogether far less tailored, less groomed, than the other guests, the crystal goblet of wine in his hand being the only real indication that he belongs at this party at all. He’s scowling, as though the implication of Christmas cheer is somehow offensive to him. “Hugh,” says Farris, “I’d like you to meet Ms. Mars. She’s one of ours.”

Veronica’s eyes go a little wide as she realizes that this is Hugh Preston, the most illustrious of the partners, as well as the most elusive. She’s never seen the man in-person before this evening, and though his current contributions to the firm are largely reputation-based, fifty years ago—when it was just _Preston & Hewitt—_he was some kind of wunderkind.  Now he bears little resemblance to the flaxen-haired looker in a Don-Draper suit, shaking hands with Bobby Kennedy and beaming into the Preston, Farris lobby from a black-and-white photo. Or in washed out color, handsomely middle-aged with intensely seventies sideburns as he clinks champagne glasses with Liz Taylor. Last, with a horseshoe mustache and the beginnings of a gut, on the golf-course with Malcolm Forbes. And now he stands a foot away from Veronica, looking as though he’d very much like to _Grinch_ the Farrises’ Christmas tree.

“Mr. Preston, it’s an honor to meet you,” she says, and he shakes her hand, staring at her face like it’s written in small print.

“One of ours, you say?” he barks at Farris. “She’s very young. They handing degrees out to teenagers, now?” He shakes his head and his many chins tremble.

“Not at all, Hugh. Veronica’s...” he looks at Veronica inquiringly, “Thirty?”

“Almost.”

“ _Almost?”_ Preston growls. “How can you be _almost_ thirty? You’re either thirty or you’re not.” He pauses, obviously waiting for something: “Well, are you thirty or not?”

“Afraid not. I’m twenty-nine,” Veronica tells him, with a quick glance at the gleeful Farris.

“Twenty-nine _is_ thirty. Don’t feed me this ‘almost’ bullshit. Isn’t it bullshit, Max?”

“It _is_ bullshit, Hugh, I apologize,” Farris replies solemnly. Preston nods and grunts and ambles away, without so much as a ‘nice to meet you,’ and Veronica covers her mouth with her hand.

“Oh my God, he’s like an ancient Lou Grant!”

“I can assure you, he _hates_ spunk,” agrees Farris, following a sip from his champagne flute, “He'll drink scotch with dinner, and after that, try to get him to talk about the eighties, because, Mars, that is a _treat_.” Her boss suddenly remembers the six-foot tall, three-piece-suit-clad gentleman at Veronica’s elbow and she can almost _see_ Farris’s brain trying to locate the name that was _just_ given him.

“Tony works for the Solomon Alliance,” Veronica helps him out, and Farris sends her an appreciative nod. Probably he has never heard of the Solomon Alliance. Probably the term “non-profit” wouldn’t even translate, but he bobs his head along as though in recognition, and it’s almost polite. “We were at Columbia together,” Veronica goes on, and she is digging through her brain for something to say about Tony that might be of interest to her boss. She remembers suddenly: “Oh, and he did his undergrad at your _alma mater_!”

“Hurrah for the Red and Blue,” Tony offers hopefully, but Farris only nods again.

“Indeed. Anyway...” He touches Veronica’s elbow briefly and gestures across the room, “I should greet my other guests, or Bernadette will accuse me of forcing her to deal with the bores. I’ll see you at dinner.” And he’s gone.

“Oh God,” mutters Tony.

“Oh, he’s like that with everyone,” Veronica assures him. “That was downright _gracious_ for Farris, actually.”

“Oh God,” says Tony again.

The two of them mingle for the next fifteen minutes, until dinner is served at precisely eight. Three courses culminate in mouthwatering _filet mignon,_ and then, because the Farrises are casual like that, dessert is served buffet style in the parlor. The guests are offered brandy, cocktails, or wine (“Coffee for the alcoholics,” jokes Farris, and Veronica sees his wife roll her eyes and touch her forehead, as though fighting a stress-migraine). Then there’s a piano performance by a trendy local jazz musician that Veronica doesn’t know. Everyone else in the room seems impressed, though, Tony included. In fact, Tony gets along just fine with everyone at the party, as Veronica knew he would. He can talk about the law, or an exhibit at the Met, or politics, or how it’s just _such a shame what’s happening to New York these days_ , and he does it all with grace. He likes everyone and is liked—the perfect date, really. _It’s so easy for some people_.

Veronica eventually manages to score herself another interview with the ancient Hugh Preston, although Farris must have told everyone else about the possibilities of such a conversation, as there is now a small circle gathered around him. They all sip their drinks and pose questions to him, like he’s a plastic fortune teller in a carnival machine. Veronica _would_ feel bad, but no one’s forcing him to stay and entertain them with his imparted wisdom.

He’s in full rant mode about how “Everyone is in a cult, these days!” (Veronica imagines he’d like to teach a university class on the subject, with charts and diagrams), when another man joins their circle, pausing to listen. Veronica doesn’t know him, she thinks at first, but then—maybe she does. There’s something familiar about the guy. Familiar and vaguely unsettling.

He’s in his fifties or sixties, it’s difficult to say, because what little hair he has is snowy white, but his face doesn’t seem _too_ old. The lines are faint, and he’s in good shape; well-kept. He has bright blue eyes, and he listens to Preston’s story with mild amusement, sipping a glass of red wine that matches Veronica’s.

At some point, the man notices her—steals a glance at her, and Veronica thinks she _must_ know him, because he gets a look about him like he’s trying to place her, too. Either that or he’s checking her out. But something about his eyes—

“Ethan!” a voice calls from across the room, and the almost-familiar man turns as an older woman joins him in the circle.

_Ethan, Ethan, Ethan..._

And then Veronica knows exactly who this man is. She gasps, it’s so startling, and fortunately no one notices, but she turns on her heel before she can do anything truly embarrassing. She sets her glass down God knows where and heads towards the door, but at least she has the wherewithal to realize that it’s December in New York and she needs a coat. Her coat. Someone took her coat. Who took her coat? She’s trying to remember, but it’s so hard to focus on anything with the images flashing through her head— _Miss Mars, isn’t it true_ and _smashed her head in with an ashtray_ and _somebody help me please_ —

_Ethan Lavoie is here._

She finds Bernadette Farris and begins speaking, lying without even deciding to do so: “I’m so sorry to bother you, I’m—I’ve had a family emergency, I have to leave, can I have my coat?”

Mrs. Farris is entirely sweet, finds Veronica’s coat and purse and asks if she’d like them to call a cab for her. Veronica declines and thanks her for a lovely evening. It’s everything she can do not to sprint out of there. _Ethan Lavoie is here._ Just as she reaches the door, she remembers that Tony is around somewhere, but she can’t really be bothered to stop and find him. He’s a grown up, he’ll make it home on his own.

Once she’s in the hallway, no longer in the same room as that man, she thinks she should feel better but doesn’t. Everything is spinning, a barrage of voices and memories upon her all at once—all the darkest, scariest parts of her life pushing their way out of the recesses of her mind where she left them, tried to forget them long ago.

She’s almost to the elevator when she hears her last name from somewhere far off—which turns out to be the other end of the corridor. Farris strolls towards her, eyebrows quirked.

“Mars, are you all right?” he asks. “You left your—friend inside.”

Suddenly, Veronica is furious. He must have known! Of course he knew! Was this some kind of sick _joke_ to him? Did he think it would be funny to see how she would react? She wheels around and stalks towards her boss. “Ethan Lavoie is in there!” she snaps, and Farris frowns, confused. _He didn’t know, then_.

“Yes, he was at Yale with Art Spitzer, and Art asked if he might bring him by, and I said...” Farris stops as he realizes. “Ethan Lavoie represented Aaron Echolls,” he says. “You testified at that trial.”

That doesn’t even begin to cover it for Veronica, but she doesn’t know how to explain that to Farris, so she pulls on her coat and starts back toward the elevator.

“Mars, I’m sure he won’t even recognize you,” Farris calls after her, “That was—what, ten years ago? He was only doing his job, and he succeeded at it, surely you can’t begrudge him that.”

Veronica reaches the elevator and slams her hand against the _down_ button. _Well it’s a free country. Freedom—that’s pretty damn sweet._ She digs gloves out of the pocket of her coat. “Just doing his job, sure, following orders,” she bites at Farris. “The Nuremberg Defense, right?”

He takes a few steps towards her. “You’re overre...”

“I was _eighteen,_ ” she snaps, turning back towards Farris, just as the elevator doors open. She flattens her hand over her chest as she leans into the statement, louder now: “I was _eighteen_ when that man put me on the stand and tried to humiliate me. When that man accused me of trying to—to seduce the man who murdered my best friend... the man who tried to kill me... who...” But she’ll be here all night, if she’s listing Aaron Echolls’s crimes—may he rot in hell. “He called me a liar, but he fed that jury _lie after lie_ and he _knew_... I don’t care if he _went to Yale with Art Spitzer_ or tells the best golf stories or knows everything about French wine or whatever it is you look for in a dinner party guest—if I go back in that room, I will—I will break something over his lying, manipulative head, and I really don’t think that’s how your wife wants everyone to remember your party so—I’ll see you Monday. I have to leave.”

And she does. If Farris protests, she doesn’t hear a word of it, just gets in the elevator and gets the hell out of there.

Her hands are still shaking by the time she sits down in a cab. She gives the driver the address and slams her eyes shut, waiting for her breathing to even out. She’s not sure how long she sits like that, but when the silence of the car becomes too much, she pulls her phone from her purse and peels the gloves over her thumbs so she can type. She punches Logan’s name before she has any idea what she’s going to say. But if anyone will understand...

“You’re way early, I haven’t even started _White Christmas_ yet,” Logan answers.

Veronica relaxes. She leans her head against the car window, and her voice is smooth when she speaks: “Left the party early. It wasn’t my scene.” She needs to work up to Ethan Lavoie. _This is helping._ “What about you? Glad to be home?” _Breathe, Veronica, Breathe._

“Sure. For ten whole days.”

_You have got to be kidding..._

“You’re going away again?” she demands, her voice about two octaves higher than she previously believed possible. “You just got back! You _literally_ just got back!”

“I’ll only be gone for thirteen days,” says Logan sheepishly.

Again: “But you just got back!”

“Yeah, but it’s actually kind of cool. This international training thing? A couple weeks in Japan. I volunteered.”

Veronica calms down a little. That doesn’t sound too bad, although, _volunteered, Logan? You’re killing me here._

But she can’t really complain. She couldn’t even really complain if it was another six month deployment to war zones, but she especially can’t complain if it’s just thirteen days in Japan. That’s less than two weeks, and for all she knows, she’ll still be able to talk to him. So nothing’s really changed. _But still_...

She gathers herself, and in an attempt at the not-complaining thing, says: “I bet Dick’s pissed.”

“I haven’t actually worked up the nerve to tell him yet,” laughs Logan.

“Coward.”

He sounds good—better than that last conversation before he left, when he was all O.D.s and combat, and it’s just thirteen days of training in Japan. It’ll be fine.

“A little late, isn’t it?” Logan asks gently. “I might mistake this for a booty call, if the circumstances were otherwise.”

 _Stupid circumstances_.

Veronica watches her breath cloud up the car window. Her voice doesn’t even shake, she sounds every bit as casual as she hopes when she says: “You’ll never guess who I ran into at my Christmas party.”

“Probably not, I can’t think of anyone I know in New York that isn’t you...” Logan muses. “God, it wasn’t Trina, was it? She’s supposed to be in San Marino for the holidays, but she might’ve just been saying that because she doesn’t like my fruitcake... no, that can’t be it.”

Veronica can’t help the breath of laughter that escapes her. “Not Trina.” _Inhale, exhale:_ the fog on the window expands and contracts. “It was Ethan Lavoie.”

There’s a moment of silence on the line, and at first, Veronica isn’t sure if Logan recognizes the name. Then he sighs heavily, and she can tell that he does. She’s still surprised when he replies in a soft, beleaguered voice, “Yeah, I heard he was in New York these days.”

“You heard?” she asks, puzzled. Logan isn’t completely sure whether his sister is on the continent, but he’s kept tabs on his dead dad’s old lawyer?

“He contacted me after Carrie died.”

 _Oh_.

“Yeah, his practice wanted me to know that they were _very interested_ in my case,” Logan goes on, all rehearsed, phony concern. “I think he even offered me a legacy discount.”

“Jesus, Logan, what did you even say?”

“Well... I definitely didn’t use any expletives, because that would be unbecoming an officer of the United States Navy, that’s for sure. So obviously, I said _no thank you, and a happy New Year to you and yours_.” (Veronica doesn’t think she’s supposed to believe him, and she feels a little better). “Mhm. Then I hung up, sulked for about a day—got a good, _strong_ brood in...” His voice lifts sweetly: “And then I called you.”

Veronica finds that her cab has stopped, but she’s frozen to her seat. She pulls away from the window, sits ramrod straight. “You never told me that,” she says.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know how much convincing it would take to get you to help me,” Logan replies, and the expected casual self-deprecation makes an appearance. “I figured maybe I shouldn’t open with a reminder of Dearly Departed Dad. All things considered.”

“Sweetheart, you getting out or what?” asks the cab driver, leaning back over the front seat. Veronica is having trouble processing the words, but she must understand the guy on some level, because she hands him a wad of cash from her purse. It’s probably too much, but she climbs out before the guy can even count it.

“I never thought...” she begins to say to Logan, but he cuts her off.

“No, I know. But at the time...”

“Nine years, I know.”

The cab let her out at the cross street, and Veronica walks slowly toward her building, dragging it out even though she’s not really dressed for twenty-five degree weather.

“Anyway,” Logan continues, “I knew you’d been in law school. At first I was imagining ways to get you to represent me, but then I found out you didn't... y'know, have your wings, so I figured at least you’d be able to find someone who was good, but who wasn’t... well, _that guy_.”

“How did you find out, anyway?” Veronica wants to know, “About law school?” but Logan only teases in reply:

“You’re not the only one who can find stuff out.”

Veronica smiles into her phone as she reaches her front stoop. She doesn’t go inside, but climbs up and sort of collapses onto the top step, propping her head against the brick banister.

“Little did you know,” she says, “you were counting on someone who would very shortly be sharing a four hundred dollar bottle of wine with the likes of Ethan Lavoie.” And if she’s a little self-pitying, so what, she's alone at Christmas and she’s entitled to that much.

Logan is mute for several seconds, and she doesn’t know how to read him (some things just don’t translate in phone conversations) until he speaks again. “Veronica,” he begins slowly, like he’s surprised he even has to say it: “You’re the _best_ person I know. You must know that.”

Then, it feels like something inside Veronica breaks: some wall, some carefully constructed system that has allowed her to function for so long. Her heart is in her throat and Veronica can’t help it anymore. She rests her forehead in her free hand and begins to cry. “You don’t know that anymore,” she tells him shakily, he must hear that she’s crying, but _fuck it_. “I could be totally shitty now.”

“Not possible,” he argues, as though offended at the implication, and it’s almost worse that he believes it so whole-heartedly.

“Logan—”

“Veronica, we hadn’t spoken for nine years,” he interrupts heatedly, “and you put your life and your job and everything on hold just to help me...”

“That was for _you_ ,” she cuts him off, voice hoarse, because that’s what he should know. He called, and it was Logan, and he _must know_ there was never any question. “I had to.”

“Yeah, it was _me_ ,” Logan says, this changes nothing for him, “your asshole ex-of-a-decade who once... smashed your windshield with a crowbar.”

Veronica lets out a frail, watery chuckle. “Headlights,” she corrects. “You smashed my headlights.”

“Oh, you’re right. Well, in that case, never mind, you totally owed me.”

She snuffles pitifully and pulls her shoes onto a higher step, resting her chin on her knees so that she’s basically a cold little ball of person, surrounded by slush and darkness and the bitter chill. Her nose is red and runny, her hair isn’t so pretty anymore, she would go inside if only she could face her apartment.

“I just...” she sniffs and knows that he understands how big a concession this is for her: “I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well..." He swallows, "What do you want to do?"

And that is the question, of course.

It’s not fair, it’s _so unfair,_ she thinks helplessly. They both left, Logan and her, they both picked up and changed almost everything about their lives, but it feels like Logan ran away and found himself, and she just got lost.

It’s just—she failed all those years ago. She failed so badly, hurt and endangered the people she loved, and she needed to do something, _anything_ , that wasn’t that. She needed to do something where failure didn’t destroy her, didn’t hurt the people around her. She wants to win, but it won’t break her if Com-Rite Insurance has to pay Martha Vallarta a couple million dollars, if half a dozen executives at Lewis Pharmaceuticals lose a bonus, if X Client has to compromise on Clauses 33 through 37 of Y Contract. It doesn’t have to mean anything to her. She doesn't have to care.

This is supposed to be better.

And it isn’t, because someone still gets hurt. She's just doing her job, that's all, just serving the client, and she  _hates_  the likes ofEthan Lavoie with a deep and abiding passion, but a small part of her must also acknowledge that Farris was right. Lavoie just did his job. Their job. And she can't say with any certainty that she wouldn't do the same.

A car door opens at the end of the block, and Veronica looks up to see Tony getting out of a cab. She sighs, but it’s just as well. Another minute on the phone with Logan, and she’ll do something stupid like invite him to spend Christmas with her.

 _But really, what would be so stupid about that_?

“I have to go,” she mutters.

“Veronica—”

“No, I honestly do,” she assures him, “I’m okay. I’m at my place now.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I—I’m—thank-you.”

“Yeah.” His voice is a little strained.

“I’ll call you soon.”

“Okay. Merry Christmas, Veronica.”

“Merry Christmas.”

They both hang up, just as Tony jogs up to the step, looking breathless and worried. “Veronica,” he huffs, ruddy from the cold, “Are you all right? What happened?”

Veronica turns her cell phone over in her hands. “Ethan Lavoie was at the party,” she says. “Sorry I left like that, I just couldn’t—be in the same room as him.”

Tony just looks baffled. “Aaand I once heard Mark Geragos talk at NYU, but I didn’t run from the room...”

Veronica nods slowly, kind of annoyed, even if she has no right to be. It would be so much easier if people could just read her mind and she didn’t have to take the time to explain everything to them. “Lavoie represented Aaron Echolls,” she says, and comprehension—a thin slice of it, anyway—dawns on Tony.

“That’s right. And you were involved?” He’s fuzzy on the details, most people are. “And you worked for his son last year too,” Tony remembers, figuring there’s got to be some connection there.

“I knew the family,” Veronica gives her standard euphemism. The victim’s family, the murderer’s family—it doesn’t even matter who she’s talking about. It’s all true. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure. I’m sorry.” Tony folds his arms and glances at the door to the apartment, like he wants to go in but doesn’t want to rush Veronica. “It’s got to be hard to see the guy again.” Veronica nods. She’s still playing with her phone, turning it over and over in her hands, and Tony notices: “Who were you talking to, just now?”

Since there’s no reason to lie... “Logan Echolls.”

“Oh.” His frown deepens, like he’s trying to solve a difficult math problem. “Oh.”

“Told you it was complicated.”

“Let’s go inside, Veronica,” Tony says, with a shivering nod towards the door. “It’s freezing out here.”

Veronica blinks slowly and thinks _it’s time_. Tony is the nicest and it sucks, but—“Can you sit for a second, Tony? I—we should talk.”

* * *

Monday afternoon, Farris sends an intern to summon Veronica to his office, and she’s not entirely sure what to expect, but she’s ready for anything... including the strictly-business tone he assumes as he asks her about some research he’s having her do for a case they’re working. After she assures him that she’ll have the information he wants by the end of the week, as promised, Farris settles back in his chair and offers Veronica the seat across from him.

“I feel I was unjust with you on Friday,” he begins carefully. “The things we experience as adolescents take a particular toll on us, and I can’t blame you for your reaction.”

“Thank-you,” says Veronica, because it isn’t exactly an apology, but it’s probably the closest that Max Farris has come to one this millennium, and she grasps the magnitude of the gesture.

“As there was no glass smashing, I think I can also commend you for refraining from making a scene,” he adds with a hint of a smile. Veronica bows her head, _but of course._ The air in the office is significantly clearer as Farris continues: “To more pleasant topics...” and it’s obvious that all unpleasantness should be forgotten now, never mentioned again, “I have officially decided to take up my position in Los Angeles. I’ll make the announcement sometime in the next few weeks, and I plan to leave in the early spring. Have you thought any more about whether you would like to become an associate in the L.A. office?”

“I’ve been considering it,” Veronica replies diplomatically. _Quite a bit, actually_.

“You don’t have to decide right away,” Farris tells her. “Take a month. I’ll need to know by February, but that gives you some time.” He returns his gaze to the laptop on his desk. It’s effectively a dismissal from the room, but Veronica doesn’t move.

“I don’t need a month,” she says. “I’ve decided.”

* * *

Two Weeks Later, January 2017

The office is buzzing the day that Farris announces his move to the west coast, and Veronica takes particular pleasure in some of the more absurd rumors that begin to circulate.

_He’s leaving his wife for a movie star. He’s leaving his wife for a law student. A debilitating illness has begun to impede his ability to work, and he’s trying to bow out gracefully._

At the end of the day (an early one, just after seven), Veronica returns to her office to see Grayson pouring over a stack of paper the size of his head, but he looks up as she enters and his eyes turn to saucers.

“Is it true?” he demands. Veronica walks over to her desk and begins to pack up her briefcase.

“Yes, Grayson, the guys upstairs _do_ know that you use the company Wi-Fi to stream porn. I’m so sorry you had to find out this way.”

“Are you really transferring to Los Angeles?” Grayson asks impatiently. “I heard Farris found an associate job for you.”

“Where did you hear that?” Veronica doesn’t particularly care, but it’s nice to have all the facts in order. She picks up a picture of her dad and Back-Up that sits on the corner of her desk and examines it for a minute. Grayson, irritated that he doesn’t have her full attention (while she definitely has his), springs up from his chair and strides over to her desk.

“It’s going around the office,” he snaps. “Is it true?”

 _Linda_ , Veronica thinks. Farris’s assistant would have access to that information; she can’t think who else.

“It _is_ true, isn’t it?” Grayson continues. “That’s why you’re handing over the Dunburro case to that new girl. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“You thought I would pick you?” asks Veronica dryly, and Grayson scowls.

“We _do_ share an office.”

Veronica slides the picture frame into the front pocket of her briefcase and then double-checks the already emptied drawers. “Well, _Cole_ ,” she says with a contented sigh, “I don’t know what to tell you, except...” she smiles at him, “If you’re ever in California, stop by and see me.”

She clicks her briefcase shut and gets ready to leave. Grayson looks doubtful: “Seriously?” he asks, because even _he_ can’t believe Veronica would ever offer him her guest bedroom.

“Sure,” she replies, and reaches over to pat him on the shoulder. “In California, I carry a taser.”

Veronica has one last errand to run for the day, dropping off some paperwork for Farris. He’s not in his office, and he might be out battling the rumor that he’s fleeing tax evasion charges, but most likely he’s just drinking in Bournewell’s office. Linda lets her in though, and Veronica takes one last look around the truly exceptional room, with its glass wall of windows and million dollar view. She sighs and leaves the papers on the desk.

In the reception area, she stops to give her farewell to Linda.

“I heard,” says the older woman with a sad shake of her head. “We’ll be sorry to lose you, Mars.”

Veronica smiles and thanks her. “I might not be the only loss around here, though,” she adds with a shrug, and Linda tilts her head, intrigued. “Rumor has it, Cole Grayson’s shopping for another position.”

“Is that so?”

“Mhm.” Veronica pulls on her coat and starts for the door. “He tells me Truman-Mann is _very_ interested.”

_Fuck the high road._

* * *

One Week Later, Neptune, California

Veronica knows—because her dad is always complaining about the guy—that Mars Investigations has brought on a temp to do some of the filing and phone-answering in the office. She figures that the twenty-something-year-old guy who sits behind the front desk, tapping the screen of an iPhone and ignoring the ringing office line, is the temp in question. And she gets where her dad is coming from, because there are still heaps of papers and file folders stacked up behind him, the garbage can next to the desk is overflowing with Subway sandwich papers, and she could hear the Mars Investigations land-line sounding off, ignored, her entire walk up the stairs.

Her dad must be out if this guy is neglecting his phone-answering duties, but Veronica waits for the ringing to stop, then raps on the door frame to get the temp’s attention. “Is Mr. Mars in?”

The guy puts down his phone immediately and scrambles to his feet, tossing a hand through his dirty blond hair and taking her in with surprise. And no small amount of interest.

“Uh—no,” he stammers, and then he leans forward against his desk, in what is probably supposed to be a suave gesture. Veronica kind of likes this kid in spite of herself. “Can I help you with something, Miss?”

She kind of likes him, but not so much that she won’t have a little fun with him. She schools her features to _frightened_ and asks in a high, breathy voice, “Are you a detective, too?”

“I...” He folds his arms, makes the decision, and nods. “That’s right.”

“Oh thank God!” She rushes the desk, and the temp takes an automatic step back, so maybe he’s got _some_ instincts. “There’s a man following me! He’s out on the street, look!” She sidesteps the desk and stands at the window, pointing down to the empty sidewalk below, until he joins her and she gasps. “He _just_ disappeared around that building there.” She turns and clutches the front of her would-be detective’s shirt: “Will you help me... um...?”

“Oh, Brian. I’m Brian.”

“Brian. That’s—such a kind name.” She drops her eyes demurely, and Brian gulps.

“Yeah, I’ll help you. Anything. What do you need?”

“I need you to follow him, of course!” says Veronica. “He went around that corner, there. I think he’s headed west.”

“Uh...”

Veronica bites her lip and for a second, drops her damsel act. “Left, Brian.” She points out the window. “That way.”

“Oh. Listen I’m not really supposed to...”

“Hurry or he’ll get away!” Veronica interrupts him frantically, pushing him away from the desk and toward the front door. “There isn’t much time!”

Brian stumbles along. “Well, maybe just—just keep an eye on the office for...”

“Of course, of course! Hurry! _Help me, Brian, you’re my only hope!_ ”

“Well, okay, I’ll see what I can...” Whatever else he says is lost as he scrambles out the front door. Veronica makes sure he’s gone, checks out the window to see him blinking in the daylight in search of her pursuer, and then sits down on the edge of the reception desk.

_The Princess Leia: gets ‘em every time._

She picks up a random file folder from the top of a high stack and flips through it. Standard stuff: cheating spouse, looks like he did it, too. Veronica sighs and waits for Brian to return, but after a minute, she tires of this and heads into her father’s office.

It’s even messier in here, believe it or not. Veronica drops into her dad’s chair and props her boots up on top of the desk, considering.

She’s lost in her own thoughts for a few minutes, before she hears someone enter the reception area. She thinks it’s Brian at first, returning in defeat, but then whoever it is taps on the door—a belated knock—and calls out, “Hello? Sheriff?”

 _It can’t be_.

“Come in!” she calls back and drops her feet to the floor. She’s leaning over the desk, hands folded in front of her, _Veronica_ smile in place, by the time Eli Navarro steps inside. He starts, but only for a second.

“I am having the _weirdest_ déjà vu,” says Weevil, strolling inside.

He has a little more facial hair than he did the last time Veronica saw him. He’s in jeans and a long sleeve t-shirt, carrying a large orange memo envelope—nothing indicative of rejoining a motorcycle gang, so she hopes _that_ went out with last year, too. And he’s wearing his wedding ring... also good. Veronica has only received bits and pieces of his story from her dad, but all in all, Weevil looks as good as can be expected... slightly better, even. She _is_ a little surprised that he’s stopping by Mars Investigations, though—really, her father should have mentioned that he was working for Weevil again, Neptune-related-veil-of-silence be damned.

“You and me both,” she replies. “Is my dad working a case for you?”

“Nah, he asked me for some information.” He holds up the envelope and then tosses it on Keith’s desk. “What are you doing here? Someone frame pretty boy again?”

Veronica rolls her eyes. “ _No_. He’s not even back in the country for five days.” Not that she thinks his schedule is of particular interest to Weevil, but the fact of Logan’s absence just now is a little annoying to her, and she feels the need to share it with someone. Then, she brightens and chirps: “I’ll tell him you said he was ‘pretty,’ though.”

“Is that what you two do when you get together?” asks Weevil, “Talk about me?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes we just doodle your name with hearts around it.”

“Knew it.” Weevil sticks his hands in his pockets and tilts his head back—an old, familiar pose of his that really does give Veronica a brief shock of déjà vu. “So what _are_ you doing here, V?”

“Oh, you know, soakin’ up the sun, Sheryl Crow style.” She’s eager to change the subject, “I heard you got a nice little settlement out of Celeste Kane. Tell the truth—how much?”

“Now, you know me, V, I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t sign-an-N.D.A.-and-tell.”

Whatever the settlement was, Veronica’s pretty sure that it wasn’t enough. And she’s definitely sure that _Big City Lawyer Veronica_ could have gotten him more. There’s some guilt there. She’s glad Weevil looks okay now.

“Your old man didn’t mention you were in town,” he adds, and Veronica shakes her head.

“He doesn’t know. I just got in today.”

“You sticking around?”

She nods.

“Well then—I guess I’ll be seein’ you.”

“I guess so. I’m sure I’ll be calling on your services one of these days—last I checked, you owed me one...”

Weevil smirks and heads for the door. “You’re crazy, V. It’s the other way around.”

Veronica isn’t alone for long at all. She hears Weevil greet someone in the outer room, hears him joke: “I left a surprise in your office,” before his footsteps retreat and are replaced with another set, not so heavy, coming toward Veronica.

Keith pauses on the threshold, sighs, and then smiles.

“Is this gonna be an annual thing, honey, because I’ll start getting the guest room ready in advance next time.” She rises from the desk and meets him halfway for a long, warm hug. Then Keith pulls back to look at her. “You’re pale, kid. You get some sun while you’re here, y’hear?”

Veronica smiles and nods.

“Listen, I’m _sorry_ about Christmas, that was...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Veronica assures him, patting the side of his arm and pulling back. “Congratulations, by the way. I saw you on Nancy Grace.”

“For two whole minutes, baby,” Keith brags, and Veronica laughs. He gets more serious and tells her, “Your mom’s taking it pretty hard.”

 _Abandoned and betrayed by family—I can’t even imagine,_ Veronica doesn’t say, but she knows her responding grimace indicates her feelings on the matter. Keith drops it. For now, anyway. He reaches up and pats her cheek, looks her all over, the full inspection.

“You look good. But what’s different about you?”

“Must be the nose job.”

“And say, what gives, anyway? I thought you weren’t going to be able to take any more time off work for a while. You’re not _exaggerating_ how hard they’re working you, are ya?”

Veronica shakes her head, and her dad must read it on her face, because just like that, he knows. His hands drop to his side and he sighs.

“Honey...?”

“I’m good, Dad,” she interrupts. Above all else, he has to understand this. For the first time in—so long. “I’m really good.”

She can’t tell if he believes her or not, and she knows he’ll need a lot more convincing about this whole thing, but it’s not really his call to make. At the end of the day, he’ll come around as he always (eventually) does when she’s right. And she’s certain that she’s right.

Keith walks around his desk and takes his seat there. His shoulders slump forward, and he pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, but he recovers after a moment and manages a weak smile for his daughter. She returns it, stronger.

After a moment, though, he frowns again. “Hey, how’d you get in here? Did you see where Brian went?”

Veronica winces. “Oops.”

* * *

> _Chalk it up to the ten episodes of_ Justified _I watched on the flight home, but I might be warming to Timothy Olyphant playing me._

—Is how Veronica finds out, via text, that Logan is back in San Diego. It’s close to ten o’clock at night, though, and in an unprecedented display of patience, she decides to let him go home and sleep before springing _Surprise I’m back!_ on him. She responds:

> _I hope you weren’t_ flying _that plane, Echolls._

And a minute later, adds:

> _Think you might have some time to chat with a beautiful blonde, say... tomorrow evening?_

So she really should expect:

> _Sure, who did you have in mind?_

Ass.

—

But seriously, folks, how has it never occurred to her that she has _no_ idea how to dress for Logan? If dressing for him were something that Veronica might be interested in doing, which it’s not. But if it were, she wouldn’t know where to begin.

She thinks of Logan, leaning against his convertible and glowing at her and _you should only wear this_ , and, okay, clearly he digs the _understated badass chic_ thing, but she can’t _actually_ only wear that, and she pretty much milked some variation of that outfit for, _oh, say, the entire duration of that trip_ , so maybe she should mix things up a little.

...Is what she would be thinking, if she were worrying about dressing for Logan, which she’s not.

It’s just a little disconcerting, because Veronica _knows_ how to dress for an occasion, and yet here she is.

She dismisses these concerns quickly, though. She does her best work when she dresses for herself anyway, and Logan’s never complained in the past. He liked her when she was all bright colors and plaid pants, it seems unlikely he’ll object to anything she picks now.

—

Veronica knocks twice on the front door of Logan’s place—a cliff-side condo that probably looks unassuming to anyone who doesn’t know what California real estate prices are like (especially when a view of the ocean is on the line). It’s nice—the neighborhood is nice: hilly and green, a mix of smaller-scale vacation rentals, summer homes, and full-time residents. There’s a Tesla parked in the spot ahead of Veronica's rental, and she notices a gleaming Mercedes pull into a garage at the end of the block, so she guesses there’s a good amount of money in this neighborhood, even without sons-of-movie-stars.

Logan found this place over the summer and decided to keep it through his most recent deployment, and Veronica’s glad for it. If he were still crashing at Dick Casablancas’s bungalow, she would have had to forego the surprise and just call Logan to meet her for dinner.

Which, come to think of it, isn’t the worst idea. Especially since Logan isn’t answering his damn door.

She knocks again and double checks for a doorbell ( _nope_ ). His car isn’t in the driveway, but she doubts Logan ever lets that thing brave the elements. If it’s here, it’ll be in the garage.

Veronica is bemoaning her need to be dramatic ( _seriously why didn’t she just call like a grown up... or at least trace his cell first?_ ), when she finally catches footsteps moving within. The door opens a moment later, and Logan is on the other side.

His face is completely blank for about three seconds (that’s the shock), and then it breaks into a full, wonderful grin that warms Veronica and belies the substance of his first question: “What the hell are you doing here?”

Veronica opens her mouth to quip back at him, but for once, wit fails her. There just isn’t time, they’ve wasted enough of it by now. “I quit my job,” she says. His grin dims a little—not like this upsets him, but that isn’t exactly the kind of announcement one meets with a glowing smile. But he doesn’t say anything, so she presses on, “And I think I moved back home until I find a place, so my life is pretty much _Garden State_ now.”

She can see him struggling, knows his brain is trying to work something out, so she lets him have “You’re much prettier than Zach Braff,” and hopes it doesn’t mean anything that she’s still on his front porch.

Maybe he just needs a minute, though, and Veronica can relate. A minute to adjust to this new, too-good-to-be-true reality, where Logan is three feet away from her, wearing blue jeans and socks and a green-and-grey baseball tee. He’s right there, _her Logan_ , solid and real and making her heart jump in her chest, heating her beneath the skin. She wonders what he’ll do when she kisses him—but she has a pretty good guess.

“You’re back,” Logan says, question, realization, request all in one. Veronica nods. Then, because he’s Logan and because he’s very like Veronica in at least some of his issues, he has to check: “You’re staying?”

Veronica nods again—and, then, because he’s Logan and because he’s very unlike Veronica in many other ways, that’s all he needs. He steps forward and hauls her up into a kiss, which she meets enthusiastically. With a year’s worth of longing—not any more than that, there isn’t room for that now, maybe later—she kisses him back, pushing herself up against him to get as close as she can as she tastes his lips, his mouth, his damn tongue for the first time in far too long. She doesn’t even realize they’ve staggered into the house until she hears the door slam shut—Logan’s kicked it—and finds herself pressed against some kind of table or shelf or something. They’re in an entry way, a hallway, maybe? Veronica really doesn’t care, because the important thing is that Logan still kisses like the fate of the species, planet, and universe at large depend on it, and everything else is details of the unnecessary variety.

They pull apart to breathe for all of one second, and then a series of quick, furious kisses follow. “Thank God,” she whispers over his lips, and then he moves his mouth along her jaw.

He pauses for a moment to say, “I should probably tell the hooker in the living room to leave, huh?”

She shifts her head, mutters “Shut up,” and bites his ear.

From there—well, it’s a little bit of a blur, how she gets to be pinned up against some wall, ankles crossed behind Logan’s back (and _why didn’t she wear a skirt for god’s sake? Stupid, stupid Veronica..._ ) as she fights to shuffle off her jacket and purse without breaking contact with his mouth. Logan’s shirt is even more of a struggle, but so, so worth it when she finally throws the damned thing to the floor, because _yeah, that’s all new, she’s going to have so much fun with this boy._

The jeans they’re both wearing pose an insurmountable obstacle in this position however, and Veronica pulls away to protest, but Logan finds her mouth again, and it’s between quick pulls from his lips that she manages, “Logan... bed... or... couch...” He pauses to look at her and to smirk, and she takes the opportunity to add, “I could probably make a chair work...” _Or the floor._ She’s really not picky. Anything that enables her to get Logan more naked will do.

He’s probably aiming for _bed_ but they only make it to _couch_ (and barely) the first time.

She comes riding him hard, her hands gripping the sofa back on either side of his shoulders as she drives down on him. His fingers dig into the flesh of her hips, help her thrusts as she gets more lost to it, as her head falls back and everything else gets swallowed up in the ecstasy.

Logan gets off just as she’s coming to her senses again, just as she’s realizing the loud, breathless moans filling the room are hers, and the glowing high sets in.

She keeps him there, locks her knees around his hips and her eyes with his. He jerks up into her, and Veronica braces herself as firmly as she can to meet him, to finish him off.

Afterwards, she kisses him—slow and sweet, happy and sloppy, there’s a strand or two of her hair between their mouths, stuck to her sweat-soaked skin. She sighs into it and then pulls back to look down into the achingly familiar brown eyes. It’s a moment before she realizes that the familiarity is no reason for pain—not something lost, something found.

“You’re here,” he whispers, voice scratchy.

She lets go of the couch, her hands sore from the grip, and stretches her palms over his cheekbones. She’s here. _Her Logan_ , once more, all along, always.

Then he takes her to bed.

—

“Well that still works,” Veronica sighs, utterly satisfied after round two. It’s getting late now, as round two itself was longer and slower—a magnificent foray into all the things they can do with each other again. She’s looking forward to the continued study of the subject. It was also preceded by more than an hour of pillow talk, as Veronica caught Logan up on the last three weeks, since she gave her notice at Preston, Farris & Hewitt the day after Christmas. She glided over the tedious particulars of her departure from New York, packing and finding a sub-letter for the loft (though she related her parting gift for Grayson with relish). She spent a little more time laying out the steps she’s taken to resume investigative work, how her dad is inching towards “resigned” and that’s better than outwardly discouraging. Then, by the time Veronica brought Logan up to the present, to digging up his address and surprising him, round two was already underway, with Logan climbing down her body, leaving a trail of kisses down her belly that made it a little difficult to focus on the end of the story.

Now, she’s resting her head on Logan’s bare chest, ear pressed right against his heartbeat, so when he responds to her comment with a chuckle, it vibrates through her.

“You were concerned?” he asks, and she almost misses it, she’s so conscious of everything else: his fingers trailing lines up and down her spine, the solid, warm feel of his body beneath hers, a contrast to the cool sheets he’s dragged up over their bodies. She smiles and looks up at him, chin propped against his chest.

“Not so much concerned as... curious?”

That makes him laugh again. “Curious, huh?”

“What, you weren’t?” She sits up a little to get a better angle. He doesn’t respond right away, so Veronica scoffs, “Yeah right, you knew exactly what was up, showing up at the airport in full uniform like that...”

He’s laughing harder now, it’s wonderful. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, I had a meeting with...”

“You are so full of it!”

“...Can’t help it if I happened to have to pick you up right after...”

“Liar! Lies, all lies!”

They’re laughing and kissing again, and the conversation gets kind of lost for a few minutes. Veronica ends up on the bed, on her side, curled around Logan while she tries to muster the will power to go to the bathroom. But Logan’s playing with her hair, his fingers threading through the short blond locks, and he says, “’Dig the look, by the way.”

Veronica thinks there’s probably not a look in the book Logan wouldn’t say that about. And mean. She scrunches her nose. “Tony said I looked like _Gone Girl_.”

“Hmmm.” He twists a strand around his index finger. “Who’s Tony?”

“A guy from New York.”

Logan kisses the top of her head and mumbles there: “Ugh, I hate him.”

Which makes Veronica laugh again. “You hate everyone.”

“That’s not fair, I think _you’re_ okay.”

Veronica sits up, rests her head in the palm of her hand, her elbow nestled in the pillows. “Just okay? That reaction for ‘okay?’ Gee, imagine if you really liked me.”

“Mmm, imagine.”

His eyes bore into her, then, and without a word, he says all of the preposterous, adoring things he can say with just a look. Veronica revels in it, delights and luxuriates in it, and thinks what it will be like to have this again—to live with this again, to wake up to it. Difficult, insane, too much at times, probably, but, God, it’s everything. It’s oxygen.

Then, Logan softens and a second later breaks, begins to snicker, and maybe it’s the three orgasms talking, but Veronica would swear it’s the best sound in the world. She tilts her chin, questioning.

“What?”

“It does kind of look like Rosamund Pike, the hair.”

“Oh _you_.” She pokes him in the ribs and hops out of bed, and Logan groans.

“Noooo. I was kidding. Come baaaaaack.”

Veronica saunters over to the dresser, Logan still complaining. She finds a large green t-shirt in the second drawer,  _Delaware_ emblazoned across the chest, and if she wiggles her hips a little as she pulls it over her head, just to tease, well—Logan deserves it. She turns back to him, eyebrows raised, and gestures at the word on the shirt.

“Big fan of the Union’s first state?”

“There’s a funny story behind that, actually.”

“I bet there is.”

She starts for the door, stepping gingerly because, to be honest, her lower extremities are still kind of out of whack. Logan rolls his head into his pillow, whining: “Nooo, I wasn’t _done_ with you yet...”

She detours by the bed and tilts his chin towards her with the tip of her finger, pecking him on the lips. “Bathroom,” she offers by way of explanation, “I expect you to be naked and awaiting punishment on my return.”

He sighs, martyred: “Yes, ma’am.” She already knows, from earlier, but Logan calls after her as she walks away: "The bathroom's down the hall and to the left. If you hit the closet full of puka shells and porn, you’ve gone too far.”

 

 

But of course, Logan isn’t naked and waiting when Veronica emerges from the bathroom; she can hear him rustling around in the kitchen, but he appears at the end of the corridor a moment later and grins, like it’s a pleasant surprise to see her. He’s in boxers and carries a water bottle—from which several swallows are already missing—as he strolls over to her.

“I gave you very specific orders, Lieutenant,” says Veronica, folding her arms as he joins her in the hallway.

“But I had to put the groceries away,” protests Logan. He unscrews the lid from the water bottle and hands the bottle to her. She has to admit—hydration? A good idea right now. She takes a big gulp while he goes on, “You know I wasn’t just twiddling my thumbs waiting for you to show up tonight. I had a productive evening. I unpacked, went shopping, vacuumed, cleaned out the fridge...” With each item on his list, he inches closer, then coils his arms around Veronica’s waist and presses right up against her. She has no idea how he makes vacuuming sound sexy, and yet, “I had big plans with frozen enchiladas and a new book.”

“Oh?” Veronica drapes her arms over his shoulders, the water bottle she’s still holding dangling somewhere behind his neck. “I can leave if you like. Or just go to bed? Find some way to occupy myself in that big bed of yours?”

“Nah, I think occupying you is my department.”

“Well, all right, if you’re sure.” She marches him backwards into the bedroom, attached at the lips, but Veronica remembers and pulls back just before the backs of Logan's knees hit the bed. “Ooh, wait.” She brings her arms back between them and holds up the uncapped water bottle. Logan provides the lid, and Veronica sets it down on the bedside table. “Safety first.” Then she pushes Logan down on to the bed.

When she’s situated herself on top of him, and Logan’s hands are up her shirt, she frowns and pretends to think. “I believe we were discussing punishment...”

“May it fit the crime.”

He tries to remove the tee, but Veronica swats his hand away. “Punishment, Echolls. Like maybe I keep my clothes on?”

But Logan breaks out into a grin and drops his hands to her thighs. “Suits me fine.” So maybe suggesting she’ll ride him wearing his t-shirt isn’t the best form of torture.

“ _Or_ ,” she goes on, taking the hem of the shirt in her hands. “I take this off...” Peeling it over her head and tossing it aside; Logan’s eyes are on her naked breasts instantly, “And you keep those boxers on.” She snaps the elastic for emphasis.

“I could still make that work,” Logan tells her. “They’re designed for just such a threat.”

“Hmmm, sure about that?” She sits up, walks on her knees forward, arms high above her head like she’s stretching, and when she drops again, she’s seated comfortably on his abs.

“So you’re just gonna sit there all night?”

“I’m sure I could find some way to occupy my time.”

Logan smirks. Too quick for Veronica to stop him, he leans up and pecks her on the lips, “I told you: my department.” He moves a finger between her legs, stroking her for a moment, till Veronica shifts to give him more access and he slips the finger inside of her. Then a second, while his thumb works her clit, and then—Jesus—a third, and Veronica closes her eyes and moans. It’s so good, she could come just like this, and probably would, but she wants—“Stop, wait.”

Logan stops and Veronica moves off of him, pulling back and—carefully, because Logan is incredibly hard right now—removing his boxers. She settles down on top of him, and they both gasp quietly at the contact. Then Veronica begins to roll her hips, and Logan’s thumb maneuvers between them again.

As she pumps her body up and down on him, she flattens her hands over him, runs them up his chest and down, and tells him, “I missed you.”

“She says to my abs,” quips Logan, and that is, indeed, where her hands are focused at the moment. Veronica meets his eye.

“Well you didn’t think I was talking to _you,_ did you?”

Logan tries to sit up, probably to kiss her, but Veronica holds him down at the shoulders. “Nuh uh, stay put.”

“Look but don’t touch?”

“Don’t you _dare_ stop touching.”

He doesn’t, and soon—sooner than before even, somehow—she’s right on the edge, thrusting down hard to get the friction she needs. She grabs the headboard and Logan takes the opportunity. He sits up, not all the way, supported by his elbow in the mattress as he propels into her— _almost there._

And God, it’s overwhelming. Her whole body is working towards this, and whether she closes her eyes or opens them, Logan is right there with her, she can feel him. She feels him shift inside of her and she finds he’s closer to her face, palm in the mattress now—close enough to kiss, and she wants to, tries to even, but then her whole body seizes up. Her hand slips from the headboard and she falls forward a little. She needs to keep moving, she needs more, more, more, but it’s so strong, she can’t hold herself up. _I’m going to fall_ she thinks, just before Logan’s hand pulls her flush against him. He’s full sitting now, driving into her, holding her up. A moan that was caught in her throat finally escapes, followed by _fuck, God, yes,_ repeated in mantra until she finishes.

She’s draped over him then, boneless and sweaty, still ever-so-slightly rolling her hips, with her cheek resting on his shoulder. Logan plants a kiss on her shoulder, and whispers, “You want me to pull out?”

“No,” Veronica whispers back, and she turns her head, so the other cheek rests on his shoulder and she can kiss his neck. “Just a minute.”

She rocks slowly against him, lets her heart settle, and breathes him in. Breathes it all in—being here, in Logan’s arms again. For a moment, she’s only a jumble of feelings, sensations, emotions, and as her world rebuilds itself around her, some things fall at strange angles. Veronica opens her eyes to an exceptional view of Logan’s back, and it’s weirdly hilarious.

“What are you giggling about?” Logan asks, pulling back to look at her, and Veronica can now hold herself up, so she straightens, still laughing.

“You, you big dork. You are— _stupid hot_.” Which makes Logan laugh too.

“Stupid hot?”

“Yes, stupid hot, what is this?” She gestures at his general torso area; “I don’t think you’re in the Navy at all, I think you spend all day at the gym!”

“You’re saying nice things but they sound like insults!” Logan alternates between laughing and kissing her face, but Veronica is looking at a serious post-orgasm high and she can’t stop giggling. “All right, I’m putting an end to this.” He’s still hard inside her, but he jerks his hips up slightly. “Off, woman.”

“Oh no!” Veronica sobers into petulance, holds him in place with her knees. “I want to play.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

She kisses him a happy, lazy kiss on the lips. When she retreats, Logan considers her, brushing strands of her hair from her forehead and studying her face.

“What do you want?” he asks, a beautifully loaded question. The answer might be a simple adjective with room for creative interpretation or as specific as positions, but Veronica is pretty sure she can’t top what just happened for _her_ , so at this point, she’s mostly interested in getting Logan on her level.

She says, “Surprise me.”

One side of Logan’s mouth curves upward, and his hands move to cup her face. He draws her in for a long, drugging kiss, and Veronica primes herself for a slow, heady fuck to match. Then, Logan’s hand slides back into her hair. He closes a fist around a bunch of it and tugs her head back—not gently.

She sort of forgot somehow that telling Logan to surprise her means he’ll actually do it.

His teeth drag along her now completely exposed neck, down the curve of her shoulder where he stops and bites. Veronica closes her eyes, responds by digging her fingernails into his shoulders. He’s rocking up into her harder, still slow but strong, and he brings his free hand down to touch her a few times, a few brief strokes with his thumb, like he’s testing her before he withdraws it.

“Fucking tease.” She retaliates, rising up on her knees, rotating her hips to mess with his rhythm in the best way.

Logan catches her mouth, kisses her hard, bites her lip before he draws back and releases her hair. She takes the chance to scratch long tracks along his back, up his shoulders, bury her nails into the back of his neck as she kisses him. They’re marking each other all up; they both know it.

Then he’s lifting her and pushing her down onto her back, and she should’ve seen it coming, but it happens so fast that she doesn’t. Her head’s at the foot of the bed now, and one at a time, he stretches her legs up in the air, his hands moving up each one, spreading her so wide. He rotates his hips with each plunge, like she likes, and it's good, it's great, the tingling warmth that spreads inside of her until— _"_ _Fuck Logan there yes there..."_ She doesn't even mean to say it, it just comes out when he finds that spot that completely short-circuits her brain. Each dip is a wave of pleasure moving up her body, like coming over and over and over again _._ _  
_

There’s a burning between her breasts—probably Logan’s making another hickey—but Veronica’s eyes are squeezed tight, it’s too good, and she realizes she’s going to come again. _Not done at all_. She opens her eyes with the realization and Logan’s moving his mouth over her breasts, but he looks almost smug, like he’s read her mind—which is impossible of course, but Veronica’s brain is still fried, so she thinks _jackass_ and begins to roll her hips out of sync with his. His thrusts are shallower now, she pulls back when he pushes forward, and he speeds up to compensate, which works for a minute until Veronica speeds up too. _He’s chasing her._ He grips the footboard to get better leverage, at which point he meets her eye and realizes she’s doing it on purpose.

She wraps her legs around his waist and rolls them over, so he’s on his back and his head is practically hanging off the side of the bed, but Logan seems okay with it. At least until he finds that Veronica fully intends to keep up her light, teasing movements, " _Not gonna work, bobcat,"_  and he flips her over again. They’re clear on the other side of the bed now, the nearest thing Logan can grab is the corner of the nightstand. There’s a crash that neither of them can be bothered to attend to, and he’s driving into her fast—she gets one foot flat against his shoulder, watches her bent knee bounce back and forth in rhythm with Logan, in rhythm with his movement inside her, in rhythm with the swells of rapture pushing through her.  

She drops the leg though, pulls Logan down to her so his body covers hers, and kisses him as hard as he’s fucking her. She bites and pulls and scratches and enjoys it immensely when Logan reacts with a gasp or a curse or a _Christ, Veronica_.

“Close,” she moans into his mouth, and she feels the heat of his fingers on her clit again. “I’m close.”

Maybe he is, too. He speeds up, tells her to come, calls her _baby_ and _so good_ and _so-fucking-amazing_ , and she comes with a powerful rush that courses through her whole body, wrings it empty, pushes a sound from her that makes her throat hoarse. Then it seems to take over Logan, too. He finishes just after, pulling back and looking at her when it happens—it’s so, so much, it should be too much, but she’s so present in this moment, so alive with the bliss that settles into her bones, that she’s above anxieties and apprehension. She watches Logan watch her, studies him, basks in it all until he drops, spent.

He’s holding himself up on his elbows at first, forehead bowed into her shoulder, but Veronica wraps her arms round him to bring his body closer. She can support the weight for a time, and she likes the feeling of his chest full on hers, falling up and down as their breathing evens out together. Then he pulls out, kisses her shoulder, her neck, her cheek, and rolls onto his side.

She shifts onto her side as well, so they face each other, so she can trace a finger along his profile, her thumb brushing over his lips and across the growing smile that matches her own, surely. He’s going to say something in a moment, she knows that but can’t guess what, because she said _surprise me,_ so he will.

But when he speaks, it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Or maybe the most astonishing, because he says it like it’s familiar and foreign, expected but always a surprise, some great, constant truth that is sometimes forgotten but never rescinded. He says, with a grin, “ _Veronica Mars_.”

It could be mistaken for a quip, but Logan won’t be fooled when she replies, “That’s right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really should've been called Probably More Smut Than Is Entirely Necessary, but was instead named for lyrics from one of my number 1 Veronica tunes, "Get What You Want" by JJAMZ. Oh, and the story title is a somewhat prosaic, slight variation on a line from Frost's "Road Not Taken." Thanks so, so, SO much to everyone who commented and kudos'd and read!


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